First reported by Exputer (opens in new tab), Sony has printed a brand new controller patent (opens in new tab) that solves maybe the best downside in gaming: “Controllers used for such functions as gaming sometimes embrace supplies which are comparatively tough to deform equivalent to plastics.” After I snapped a plastic panel off my DualShock 3 in 2014 after dying to the Belfry Gargoyles in Darkish Souls 2 for the twelfth time, my challenge completely was that my controller wasn’t “deformable” sufficient.
The answer, naturally, is “a controller that features a sensor utilizing an elastically deformable elastic member, and this sensor detects consumer’s contact with or deforming motion of the elastic member and outputs an electrical sign based mostly on the detected contact or deforming motion in query.”
Primarily, the patent appears to be proposing that the signature protruding grips of a PlayStation controller be made out of a reshapable elastic materials. The doc vexingly calls this new characteristic an “elastic member,” and the brand new development would theoretically ship higher haptic suggestions like controller rumble or… temperature modifications?
“The form or hardness of the parts of the elastic members (grips) modifications in response to a course of carried out by the knowledge processing equipment equivalent to a sport, which makes it attainable, for instance, to current the fabric of a digital object in a sport area to the consumer as a haptic sensation, current the temperature of the digital object as a heat/chilly sense, or the like.”
A controller that might get hotter in your palms as you enter a lava stage or take fireplace injury. I do not imply to be a downer, however my palms already get sweaty sufficient after an extended play session. This is not even essentially the most bewildering proposition included within the patent. Underneath a piece labelled “[Tearing off and Sticking Actions],” the patent reads:
“Actions of separating the elastic member into parts every of which incorporates a minimum of one circuit part by tearing the parts off or sticking the separated elastic member collectively and restoring them to the unique kind (becoming a member of) could also be made recognizable by offering the plurality of circuit sections within the elastic member. Self-healing supplies…could also be used because the elastic member described above.
“On this instance, the circuit sections within the elastic member could talk with one another to acknowledge separation and becoming a member of in line with a change in distance therebetween.”
Until my eyes deceive me, what I am seeing described is a few form of destructible, malleable controller fabricated from area age goo that’ll get sizzling in your palms whereas Geralt’s within the tub in The Witcher 3: Subsequent Subsequent-Gen Version. All the pieces about this concept strikes me as an answer in quest of an issue, harking back to PlayStation 3’s Sixaxis controls, the rear touchscreen on the Vita, or HD rumble on the Nintendo Swap.
These controller gimmicks have been advertising and marketing bullet factors at their respective console launches, however have been not often used after that. In the meantime, the hallmarks of a genuinely fascinating sport controller stay easy, unsexy issues like construct high quality, battery life, and ergonomics, whereas one of the best controller ever made continues to be good outdated granddaddy mouse and keyboard—repurposed workplace gear that is been round without end.
Sony owns a patent that will power viewers to exclaim the model identify throughout commercials to finish them. pic.twitter.com/DC3rcKvzlLJanuary 9, 2023
After all, we could by no means see this factor. Corporations can have itchy set off fingers in relation to patenting goofy concepts: simply check out this Nintendo entry for hinged, bendable joycons (opens in new tab) from 2019, a design that launched extra failure factors to a controller connected to a failure level. Sony itself, in the meantime, nonetheless holds a patent on the linchpin of the Darkest Timeline: a TV that will power you to verbally work together with it to finish commercials (opens in new tab).
The PC Gamer workers is split on this one although. My colleague, government editor Tyler Wilde, insists he would “like to carry the gooey DualShock,” whereas I hope “Goo-al Shock 6” joins these different concepts within the dustbin of historical past, the place the sticky, self-healing goo of its development will little question get riddled with crumbs and lint.