New Sony Patent could make gaming easier based on players' skills and weaknesses
A new Sony patent which has been filed suggests the company could be working on AI that would help players who struggle when gaming.
While patents are often filled with no intention of them actually coming into being, PlayStation fans think that this patent could completely change gaming.
A new Sony patent uses AI to help adjust difficulty for players who struggle in games
The patent, titled ‘Systems And Methods For Enabling Predictive Assistance During Gameplay’, was filed in May and was publicly released on 30 November.
Within the patent, a system which would allow for players' skill in games to be analysed and used to provide assistance is outlined.
The abstract listed at the start of the patent stated: “The method includes accessing a profile model associated with a user account of a user.
“The profile model is used to generate one or more predictive indicators based on a plurality of game contexts of one or more games.
“The method further includes receiving a request for accessing a game for a game session via the user account and generating assistance input for the user responsive to the one or more predictive indicators that the user will be unable to complete a task in the game.
“The task is associated to a game context. The assistance input is provided before the user performs the task.”
Based on the patent, Sony Interactive Entertainment is hoping to anticipate which points in a game individual players will struggle and offer assistance before they encounter the obstacle.
A new Sony patent uses AI to help adjust difficulty for players who struggle in games
While some players were sceptical about how likely the patent actually being used was, others commented about how they thought it could benefit gaming.
“That would be pretty awesome actually,” one Reddit commenter wrote. “I remember when New Super Mario Bros Wii came out, it had a feature where an AI would do a level you were stuck on if you died enough times. It'd be cool if every game could do that.”
Another user said: “I for one would appreciate that in all games. Especially if it were selective. I hate vehicle segments. If an AI can tell that I am bad at these, and adjust for me, games like Arkham Knight suddenly become playable and not total batshit.”
Several people stated that Sony patents do not hold much weight, with some referencing the infamous Banana Controller, which is intended to turn a “non-luminous passive object being held by a user” into a controller.
While a patent being filed doesn’t mean much in the grand scheme of things, a neural network which can learn where your weak points are and help bypass them could definitely change the way players approach gaming in the future.
It will be interesting to see what, if anything, Sony does with this technology in the future.
