Sony is no stranger to patenting different features, even if their release seems unlikely. Just recently it filed a patent for a controller that could mimic temperature changes, another for NFTs in different games and platforms, and much more. Another patent (discovered by Gamesual) looks to go even further beyond, focusing on detecting emotions and moderating gameplay based on voice inputs.
The idea is to store a player’s “emotional profile”, which includes some rules that will take action depending on one or more emotional states, and “solve the problem of negative emotions affecting a player’s mental health or sensory processing conditions during gameplay sessions.” While this sounds like a way for your angry outbursts to stop Elden Ring bosses from killing you, it can also help prevent things like “bullying language.”
This system could also monitor the emotional states of multiple players in a session. If any of them violate the moderation rules, they could lose their “privileges.” Of course, given how the patent was filed in September 2021 and still hasn’t been implemented, it remains to be seen if Sony will do anything with it. As always, time will tell, so stay tuned.
