Sony's New Patent May Enable PlayStation to Detect Your Smile
The patent applications suggest that Sony is planning a system to recognize players' facial expressions and send emotes based on that knowledge. Another idea from the company is to automatically detect when we're not doing well in a game and give us help in the form of video content.
- Emoji icons based on facial expression recognition;
- System for detecting situations in which the user is not coping with the game and providing them with helpful video content.
Sony has filed some interesting patent applications. They show what plans the Japanese company has for PlayStation consoles. The first of the documents describes a technology for automatic sending of emoji icons based on the detection of player's facial expressions. How does it work? The camera on the controller would analyse the user's face in an attempt to recognise their emotions, and then publish relevant images in, for example, in-game chat.
The patent presents several possible versions of this solution. One assumes sending icons from a ready-made database, where facial analysis would only decide which image would be selected. The second variant describes the creation of new emoji based on what was recorded by the camera. In other words - our face and appearance would be used to generate a new emoji.
The second proposal suggests a system that would be able to analyze the actions of players and detect when they have problems with getting past a specific part of the game. Then, it would offer the user a video with tips useful in their situation.
As part of this solution, the developers would include markers in the game code on important events that signal the player's progress, as well as the estimated time needed to achieve them. In this way, the system could recognise when a section is taking too long to complete.
The patent is not limited to consoles and could also be used in mobile games, for example. It also doesn't specify where the useful video content would come from. Sony already offers helpful videos as part of Game Help, but these are made by the developers themselves. However, there's nothing to prevent the system from also using content uploaded to YouTube by gamers.
It is not known whether Sony plans to introduce these solutions in the near future. It's quite possible that in the end, the patents will not result in anything tangible for the users to experience, but still the conclusions give an idea of the technology direction considered by the company.
