Seemingly not content with what it currently offers in the DualSense Controller’s haptic feedback and adaptive triggers, Sony has recently filed a new patent that would add even more immersion to gameplay with a controller that’s able to change temperatures.
The patent was filed last week by Sony Interactive Entertainment and is simply labelled “Controller.” You can look at it in full here for all the nitty-gritty detail and diagrams, but we’ll try to break down the important bits and how it could work in a future take on the existing DualSense controller below:
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This new controller patent begins by describing the core problem that it’s looking to solve – the rigidity of the current plastics used in video game controllers. Essentially, Sony is looking to change this by including an “elastically deformable elastic member” in the controller which can provide increased deformation and sensitivity to the player’s touch and input to enhance the current haptic feedback the controllers offer.
The interesting bit goes a bit deeper in, and describes the patented mechanism’s ability to “present the material of a virtual object in a game space to the user as a haptic sensation, present the temperature of the virtual object as a warm/cold sense, or the like” which implies that not only could this hypothetical future controller give players the physical sensation of objects in-game (this would be great for VR, by the by) but also give them the feeling of hot or cold environments as real-time feedback.
Imagine swinging a fire-imbued sword or an ice spell in an RPG and physically feeling a (hopefully mild) hot or cold sensation in the moment, or feeling the difference between the beating sun of a desert environment and the frigid night and that’s where this idea could potentially take us.
Obviously filing a patent doesn’t mean that Sony is actively planning on implementing the technologies it describes, but the possibilities are exciting to think about and we’d certainly welcome these features in future controllers.
