Sony is escalating its emotion-aware gaming agenda with newly surfaced patent documents that detail plans for games that can genuinely understand and respond to your feelings in real time.
Building on its existing work in emotion-recognition technology, Sony’s latest patent, titled “Player Selection System and Method“, describes even more advanced systems that monitor player biometrics and behaviors to enable personalized, emotion-adaptive gameplay experiences.
For example, the PlayStation VR2 headset could leverage its advanced inside-out eye tracking, directly observing pupil dilation and eye movements. This emotional data can reveal reactions like anger, joy or surprise as players experience games.
The PS5 DualSense controller also enables emotion detection through its haptic sensors that analyze grip pressure and playstyle inputs. Signs of frustration may be inferred from aggressive button mashing behaviors, meanwhile mis-timed actions might indicate lapses in player focus and attention, or possibly boredom.
Sony also suggests that additional emotions may be inferred from certain gameplay actions. Recklessly destroying in-game environments could betray stress (or stress relief!), just as repeated quick saving or inability to progress forward might reflect anxiety and hesitation. Even dialogue choices and how players treat non-player characters can offer insight into their mindsets.
From biometrics to behaviors, various pipelines feed emotional data to user modeling and sentiment analysis engines that are described in the patent. Those signals are combined to form overall emotion baselines and fluctuations.
Then once emotions are detected, the systems can tailor gameplay experiences accordingly in real-time.
Feeling stressed, for example, might trigger “calm” games like Journey or The Pathless to be suggested over intense shooters. Alternatively, detecting a competitive mood could launch something like Call of Duty.
During multiplayer, compatible teammates can also be matched based on shared emotional states or trajectories, enabling more positive cooperative play while avoiding volatile pairings. Theoretically, this should enable more positive cooperative play while also avoiding grouping aggressive players with newbies for example.
Games would continuously evaluate engagement, tweaking themselves dynamically to retain player interest. This closed feedback loop leads to gameplay experiences that are personalized around emotion.
One could argue that Sony is patenting the future of interactive entertainment, one where games play you just as much as you play them.
The implications span from fully personalized game libraries that act as emotional journeys, to next-gen games designed from the ground up with emotional adaptability in mind. Matchmaking could account for moods, reducing toxicity. VR titles might respond to facial micro-expressions that most humans would miss. Entire interactive worlds could transform accordingly as our pulses race and pupils dilate.
Still, significant privacy concerns exist around handling such personal data, not unlike debates regarding access to medical and genetic records. The accuracy of tracking emotions and actually enhancing experiences through this approach also remains unproven.
Nevertheless, this patent, and the ones before it, signals Sony’s intent towards pioneering player-centric, emotion-aware gaming. If successful, its vision could redefine everything interactive entertainment means to us today.
