Sony is working on new technology that could potentially replace the traditional PlayStation controller with a banana. Yes, a banana.
The team aims to present an alternative to the overly-expensive, technically complex and increasingly inaccessible PlayStation controllers that now dominate the gaming industry.
While currently being designed around a banana, the method is proposed to work with any ‘passive object’ held by a user, meaning that it’s not actively generating data.
For simplicity’s sake, let’s call this technology the banana controller.
Sony’s banana controller proposed a camera that can detect and track an object with its movement. They explained it in their patent application as detecting an object in the player’s hand, evaluating it by its pixels, contours and colours.
As per the application: “The game can infer the banana’s positions as it moves through space, which might serve as a replacement for a flight stick, control the in-game camera, or pause the game if the banana is set down out of frame.”
Although the inventors used bananas to demonstrate their design, the patent application document also referred to oranges as possible controller candidates, even showing that you could weild two oranges or bananas at the same time, for dual-wielding action.
Before we can start raising eyebrows and asking questions about this invention, let’s revel in the joy of how deliciously creative this concept is?
Although not all patent applications are feasible, this design’s whole purpose is to simplify the technical complexity of traditional controllers and given its versatility, might actually work. This theoretical technology would be usable on virtually any object that doesn’t have a reflection, such as mugs, pens and pencils.
Even if this specific design doesn’t come to fruition (hehe), Sony’s banana controller proposes the next step in detection technology, which may see the future of gaming and virtual reality evolve in a whole new way.
So yeah, Sony will likely sooner turn bananas into controllers before you get a chance to buy a PlayStation 5.
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