A recently published Sony patent may just give us a sneak preview of the PlayStation 5’s user interface. According to TheGamePost, the patent potentially demonstrates how the upcoming console’s UI might look when it launches later this year, including the dynamic use of in-game stats (e.g. playtime and kill count), hints, and video replays.
At first glance, it doesn’t look all that different from the design of the PlayStation 4’s user interface but the patent’s claims go into more detail about some of the prospective features. Personalisation of the interface appears to be Sony’s main priority in designing the new interface. According to the patent, the interactions between the player and the game as well as interactions between the player and other applications will be analysed and used to produce individual behaviour metrics. These metrics will then be used to assist the player in improving their gameplay via context-specific hints designed to match the gamer’s play style. Assistance may be delivered in the form of video, textual and audio hints or a combination of any two or all three.
For example, if you’re stuck on a particular part of a game, the interface may provide you with a video of another player with a similar playstyle to yours successfully completing that portion of the game.
This is a cool concept and certainly has the potential to benefit players who choose to use it but it is worth mentioning that this patent was filed a long time ago and only recently published so Sony may not be using this interface at all or may just be using select elements from it.
