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At this point, the smart home craze is in full swing and most major tech companies are looking at ways to break into the market. On Microsoft's side, the Xbox One is getting voice command support for Google Assistant and Amazon Alexa in addition to Microsoft's own digital assistant, Cortana. Sony appears to be interested in a similar idea for PlayStation consoles, with a new patent describing ‘PlayStation Assist'.
Just like most other major digital assistants, AI is front and centre with the goal of improving the assistant's responses over time. As reported by industry analyst, Daniel Ahmad, PlayStation Assist could have deeper integration with games, giving players the ability to ask a question like ‘where is the nearest health pack' or ‘where is my next objective' and having those things marked on the map for you.
Sony has filed a new patent for an AI powered voice assistant called PlayStation Assist.
You can input a query and then the game will dynamically respond.
E.g. Ask for the nearest health pack > The game marks it on your map.https://t.co/BQWibOqSRP pic.twitter.com/PNKDEH7jGe
— Daniel Ahmad (@ZhugeEX) September 29, 2019
Sony's patent describes PlayStation Assist as “a method of gaming assistance”, allowing players to “request help through a query to a back-end game assist server”. Sony is covering all of its basis too, with the patent saying that “the query may be of any format, or a combination of formats, including audio, text, video etc.
So essentially, instead of pulling out a phone or a laptop to look up a guide when you get stuck, you could just hit a button and ask PlayStation Assist for guidance and then it would check the server for answers and deliver them to you. You could also potentially ask the assistant questions about a specific game, such as character information, overall popularity of the game, pricing details etc.
It is an interesting idea but patents don't always lead to consumer features or products. However, with digital assistants all on the rise, this doesn't seem like an unfeasible idea for an all-new PlayStation 5 feature.
KitGuru Says: While I normally try to figure things out for myself in games, there are occasions where consulting the world wide web is very helpful. With something like this, Sony could keep players engaged on the platform, without the risk of turning to another device for answers and getting distracted. However, all of this will depend on whether or not PlayStation owners actually want to make use of a feature or not. What do you all think of this idea?
