Wednesday, 10 March 2021 12:33

Sony May Be Making Major Advancements In Virtual Reality This Year

Written by Jared Carvalho
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Sony files a patent that hints at new ways to use a camera to relay emojis within VR, opening up new options for a PS5 peripheral.

A new patent filed by Sony continues to indicate that the hardware developer is looking to expand further into the realm of VR, with some fans hoping to see new peripherals come to PS5. This comes alongside a number of new Sony patents ranging from controllers to VR headsets that all continue to point that there are plans for some type of update to the PlayStation add-on.

The latest patent from Sony includes the type of language most players would expect from any kind of Virtual Reality device, including an ability to generate images and use cameras to read inputs. As is often the case with this type of official documentation, everything is very technical and somewhat vague as not to give away to many specifics to the public, though there is some interesting information hidden in there.

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One of the more notable inclusions is the way that the camera will be able to read physical gestures in order to relay information back to the device. This means that the player's motions, possibly not even limited to the use of a controller, can be read and turned directly into an action in-game. A similar patent identifying a banana as a PlayStation controller has had similar language and suggests that Sony may be looking into something in the same category as the Xbox Kinect.

As for the specific gestures that this latest patent is looking at, it would appear that Sony is looking for how to best create a way to show emotions through emojis using the VR function. Some figures indicate that a player could possibly make physical gestures, either with their hands or what look like Move controllers, in order to have their in-game character display an emoji corresponding with a given mood. One aspect of the anticipated PS5 VR that this does confirm is that this upcoming peripheral will be able to use a camera to follow more than a light source the way the current PS VR sensors do.

These new patents could mean a lot for Sony's newest PlayStation VR peripherals, though most of what fans are left to assume is completely up to speculation. This dedicated ability to send emoji's could mean a push for multiplayer VR, which is often a pretty large selling point for consoles and games in general. However, Sony has remained silent about what exactly the plan is with all of these VR innovations, leaving fans in the dark for the moment as the developer waits to make any official announcements.

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Source: USPTO

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