Sony Interactive Entertainment has registered with the United States Patent and Trademark Office a document investigating the possibility of being able to change applications without the need to close the video game in use. Currently, the SSD memories included in the next generation PlayStation machines allow loading times to be negligible; however, current PS5 software does not allow multiple windows to be displayed at the same time; for example, those intended for multimedia purposes. This may change soon.
It may interest you:
- PS5: Sony files a patent for official PlayStation 5 covers
What this patent indicates and what it may mean for the future
As can be read in the patent, approved this November 18, 2021 by the Japanese firm after its application last July in San Mateo, California, United States, “the window can be docked to the graphical user interface and user can automatically switch to another app”.
Currently, PS5 requires several steps to activate music or compatible applications in the background. If this patent materializes, PS5 would reduce those steps by incorporating something similar to what is known as picture-in-picture, which is increasingly common on tablets, smartphones and computers: the possibility of anchoring an app / window superimposed on the main application in use.
Layer upon layer: this is how Sony defines the patent
In this way, as is already the case with cards Activities, which overlap a small window with the explanatory guide videos, Sony shuffles more options for use without leaving the application. “After the user’s action when requesting a menu, the menu is laid out in a layer over at least a part of the first layer content”, Which runs at the same time as the first one, although adopting a smaller screen space size.
This option does not refer to the possibility of jumping between various video games in the background without having to close them, as Xbox Series X | S does with the so-called Quick Resume.
Needless to say a patent is not necessarily the advance of a registration-related advertisement in the near future, but Sony teams are working on this technology and have wanted to legally support those ideas for eventual uses and implementations.
We may know more details soon.
Source | USPTO; via GamingBolt
.