PS5: 10 Ways It Will Change Gaming Forever
6. Tailored Voice Assistance
On the subject of new and... interesting patents Sony’s filed, one isn’t turning heads for the right reasons, and getting people a little bit worried for the future of microtransactions.
Hey, the article is called “10 Ways The PS5 Will Change Gaming Forever” - not all changes are good ones!
This one’s been referred to as an in-console Siri-like assistant which “personalises help to gamers”, but the diagrams provided to the World Intellectual Property Organisation show this “tailored assistance” actually includes offering bespoke microtransactions - with the patent document depicting a child getting frustrated at a tough section of a game, asking the microphone for help, and the disembodied voice replying, “Eighty percent of players like you defeated the boss using Resource X”, before asking the player if they’d like to buy said resource as a microtransaction.
Obviously, the real-world applications of this are yet to be seen, and this patent may never see the light of day (given the recent demonisation of microtransactions, with the UK even adding them as on-box warnings, a new system for peddling them seems ill-advised), but I can’t help but be perturbed by the idea of a future where my PS5 listens out for ways to gouge me.