Introduced final week at CES 2023, Sony and Honda’s new good automotive prototype appears to be taking a web page from Elon Musk’s Tesla, letting of us boot up PlayStation 4 and 5 video games through its inside screens. However Sony can also be planning to make use of the automotive as a strategy to promote shit on the skin of it when you drive round. Welcome to the long run. It sucks.
The Afeela, Sony and Honda’s new good EV (electrical automobile), is a three way partnership between the 2 giant firms designed to leverage each Sony’s superior tech and Honda’s many years of automotive manufacturing. The result’s a brand new, super-fancy, and technology-packed prototype EV that Sony claims might be hitting the streets in a number of years. And when it does, apparently, you’ll be capable to use it to play PS5 video games.
Now to be clear, you received’t be capable to simply pop a PS5 disc into the automotive as Afeela will make the most of cloud streaming to let homeowners and passengers play PS5 and PS4 video games on the go, supplied you will have an honest sign or web connection. You’ll additionally be capable to watch motion pictures and TV through the varied screens contained in the automotive.
However the Afeela doesn’t simply have screens on the inside. No, like a bizarre future episode of a Pimp My Journey reboot, the Afeela additionally options an exterior widescreen show. Sony name’s this the automotive’s “Media Bar” and says it is going to let homeowners show a wide range of information together with the present climate and battery stage of the automotive. It may also be used to show totally different colours or photographs, too. Yasuhide Mizuno, CEO of Sony Honda Mobility, says with the media bar, homeowners can “categorical” themselves “by sharing numerous kinds of info to folks round [the car].”
Sony additionally has some much less cool plans for this new media bar. Throughout its CES showcase, Sony briefly displayed an advert for Spider-Man: No Manner Dwelling on the skin display screen. Not way more was stated about this transient second from the occasion, past Mizuno suggesting Sony was speaking to companions about how they’ll create “enjoyable and thrilling” interactions utilizing the media bar. That sounds lots like Sony needs Afeelas to be cell promoting billboards.
In fact, all of that is nonetheless a number of years away as Sony and Honda say the Afeela isn’t popping out till 2026. However as a tease of what to anticipate from future good automobiles, it’s not wanting good. Contemplating how ad-riddled good TVs already are in 2023, I’m not wanting ahead to automobiles getting lined in screens and advertisements, too. I assume I’ll barely discover as I play a laggy PS5 sport through the cloud within the backseat of the Afeela. Anyway, I assumed the long run could be cooler.