Sony’s latest patents suggest PlayStation games could use biometric sensors to track heart rates, adjusting difficulty, and NPC behavior, and even automating gameplay highlights.
In recent years, major tech companies like Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo have filed numerous patents for video games. While many of these patents simply secure potential technologies under development, some eventually lead to groundbreaking new hardware or software features that shape how we play.
Now, four new patents by Sony Interactive Entertainment were recently published, focusing on biometric sensors, like heart rate monitors. These aim to adapt games based on players’ emotional responses, dynamically adjusting difficulty, making NPCs more or less reactive, and even automating highlight reels.
Sony PlayStation Patents Biometric Sensors To Track Players’ Heart Rate
Sony’s new patents revolve around using heart rate data collected from players during gameplay. The goal? Enhance game immersion by tailoring experiences based on real-time emotional responses.
Sony’s first patent suggests games could detect a player’s heart rate and adjust the difficulty, and game elements, such as moving intense scenes to a different part of the game or changing music and sound effects.
Heart rate sensors could be embedded in devices like smartwatches, rings, or video game controllers. When the game detects rising heart rates, it might ease up on difficulty to avoid overwhelming the player, or, conversely, it could make things more intense if it senses you’re too relaxed.
“As an example, in a scene that induces higher pulse rates, no more than two game characters may be allowed to enter a virtual room in the game,” the patent reads. “Or, difficulty in aiming weapons may be added or subtracted in response to the biometric feedback.
“As an example, difficulty in aiming may be increased responsive to lower pulse rates and decreased responsive to higher pulse rates.”
The second patent takes things beyond gameplay to the world of game spectating. It presents a technology that uses heart rate data to automatically create highlights of the most exciting moments in a game.
“If heart rate of the gamer for example exceeds a threshold, a bookmark to be appended to a recording of the computer game, and/or it may create a clip of the last minute or two or other time period of the game before the clip plus the first minute or two or other period after selection.
The patent also describes organizing players into different categories based on their heart rates. For example, players with heart rates under 80 BPM could be labeled as “low-key,” those between 80-100 BPM as “mid-range,” and those above 100 BPM as “excited.”
These patents also highlight the potential of using machine learning to control NPC behavior based on the player’s heart rate. “Behavior of an NPC as controlled by an ML [machine learning] model can change depending on the physiological condition of a human gamer playing the game in which the NPC appears.”
Check out all four patents here, here, here, and here.
In other PlayStation news, co-CEO Hermen Hulst recently said in an interview that while AI has the potential to “revolutionize” the gaming space, it can never replace human creativity in gaming.
What are your thoughts on these patents? Let us know in the comments below!
