Thanks to their commitment to cloud gaming, Microsoft has managed to build a pretty strong platform for playing your games wherever you want to. According to a new patent filed by the Japanese branch of Sony, it appears that the company might finally be ready to compete for the mobile space in a more meaningful way.
As spotted by VGC, a patent was recently filed by Sony that outlines a controller similar in shape to the Dualshock 4 that would fit around your phone similar to the Backbone One device. This design choice might have been made due to the controller lacking the newly added functionality of the DualSense controller of the PlayStation 5.
According to the official patent, the design will feature “a left-side grip portion and a right-side grip portion gripped by the left and right hands of the user.” While not featured in the image, the grips will also feature a shaft portion that “can be tilted by the user, and detect the tilting direction and tilting amount of the shaft portion,” which should enable gyroscopic play on the Phone.
The practical applications for this could see Sony attempt to extend their libraries range via the console remote play function, or through streaming in a similar manner to that of Xbox’s use of the cloud. While not on the same footing as Game Pass, the PlayStation Now service on the system has seen multiple improvements over the years and might be what Sony is hoping to push through the phone with a controller like this.
This expansion does make sense given what we have heard from the company this year. Sony head Jim Ryan had previously stated that he wanted PlayStation games to be enjoyed by an “Almost Limitless audience. Plans to get games like God of War and Horizon: Zero Dawn to mobile have also been recently discussed. In an interview Ryan had also stated:
We have been thinking about how players enjoy our content and have had some early success with experimenting with mobile games and apps to provide more choices to gamers. Mobile is just one of the areas we are exploring to reach millions of gamers beyond our platforms.
It should be interesting to see how Sony attempts to expand beyond their brand of gaming consoles moving forward.
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