Sony has patented a brand new common controller button that might change the best way players work together with video games on the corporate’s PlayStation consoles. The brand new ‘gameplay rewind’ button may let players revisit sure components of the sport which have already been accomplished and consider these sections, after which return to reside sport play. Gamers may also have the ability to generate “bookmarks” whereas taking part in video games, and the purported rewind button would permit them to repeatedly entry the favorite components of their video games.
Sony Patents ‘Gameplay Rewind’ Button for Controllers
A patent doc (by way of Tech4Gamers) titled “Gameplay Rewind with Consumer Triggered Buttons” describes a devoted button on the controller that can permit customers to generate a bookmark of the sport that they’re taking part in. The machine will keep in mind these bookmarks generated by the person, and the sport being performed by the person also needs to be able to mechanically producing them.
Fig 4A exhibits the rewind button and Fig 4B exhibits the rewind interface
Photograph Credit score: WIPO/ Sony
Sony explains how such a function could possibly be helpful for players. The corporate says {that a} rewind button may let customers “assessment” just lately performed parts of the sport, in case they missed directions supplied by a non-playable character (NPC).
For instance, you might be taking part in Life is Unusual: True Colors, the place you go round a bar and speak to patrons, report again to the bartender and repeat what two individuals ordered. In the event you had been paying consideration when the patrons had been speaking to you, you’ll have the ability to give the correct order, otherwise you may get it fallacious. Whereas there is no penalty for offering a fallacious reply on this sport, the rewind button may have presumably helped you out in such a state of affairs.
Having access to earlier moments of gameplay generally is a problem, and Sony says that it might contain hacking an current service to realize entry to a selected a part of the sport. The corporate provides that even when a participant managed to file some components of the sport, they would want to cease taking part in the sport to entry the content material.
In response to the corporate, players will have the ability to press the common button throughout reside gameplay, and the console will show a brand new interface that provides playback-style controls, together with a “rewind” possibility. Deciding on the rewind possibility will present customers a “subset of captured picture frames from the gameplay”, in response to the corporate.
These captured picture frames could be manually (or mechanically) bookmarked and saved throughout gameplay. They are going to be displayed in sequence — in reverse order — when the participant enters rewind mode, as per the small print shared within the patent doc.
In consequence, players will have the ability to work together with previous moments from the sport. For instance, they will replay a selected part if they don’t keep in mind directions supplied by an NPC, or they missed some info proven by the sport when passing by way of an necessary space.
Sony’s patent doc additionally means that customers will have the ability to “work together” with gameplay moments in rewind mode, however there is no info on how that might work. It is value noting that the existence of a patent doesn’t essentially imply that Sony will embrace assist for such a function on its controllers sooner or later.