Sony appears to be working on a special social community system that could, in theory, help reduce the number of spoilers present in the various online gaming communities for story-based games. The company behind the PlayStation brand has already patented a number of features that seem to think outside the box when it comes to solving certain industry problems, and its latest listing is particularly interesting for its approach to the matter at hand.
For example, while Sony is also working on AR games, judging by some of its older patent listings, the company doesn't seem to have any shortage of ideas for future potential features that, unlike the notion of augmented reality itself, haven't really been thoroughly explored yet. The community system patent represents one such endeavor, and it comes with a fairly lofty goal, to boot.
Specifically, Sony claims that its newly patented feature would be positioned to outright replace gaming forums dedicated to helping players get through difficult sections of video games. The listing describes a special feature that would connect players depending on their in-game progression to promote discussion and, if they're both stuck, have them try to figure out a solution in tandem. The patent specifically mentions that it would be useful in games such as The Witcher 3 and God of War, explaining that the proposed "real-time social experience" would be preferable to the experience of browsing an old-school gaming forum, as it would provide organic solutions without exposing players to various narrative spoilers.
While the feature itself might not be more interesting at face value than the alleged PlayStation 5 with a detachable disc drive, it has the potential to be immensely important if executed correctly. By pairing players together at challenging or deliberately confusing sections of the game, Sony could foster new gaming communities where there previously might've been none present, going beyond simple text-based communication by offering what sounds like a new kind of social experience.
There's a huge number of games coming to PlayStation consoles in the near and far future, and it's not a huge stretch to imagine Sony's proposed anti-spoiler feature set up in many, if not most of them. Should the feature end up working as described in the patent listing, of course, the issue would then be that no other company could implement it as such, with Sony being the sole owner of this new social interface.
Microsoft, for example, is already unhappy with Sony's attempts at "making Xbox smaller," as Phil Spencer put it, and if a feature such as the one described in this listing ends up growing in popularity, it's all but certain that Microsoft itself would start looking into similar solutions in due time. For that, though, fans of Sony will still need to wait for a good long while, as the presence of a patent doesn't necessarily mean that the service will be ready to go anytime soon.
