VR could be more than „a single-player” time spender, as the company has an idea.

IGN has found a patent on the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) website.

The diagram might not be clear, so the abstract should help us here: „A computer-implemented method for processing operations for integrating audience participation content into virtual reality content presented by a head-mounted display of an HMD user is provided. The method includes providing a VR scene to the HMD of the HMD user and receiving indications from one or more spectators. The indications corresponding to requests for audience participation content for participating in the VR scene. The method includes sending audience participation content to one or more spectator devices.

The audience participation content configured to be displayed on respective displays associated with the one or more spectator devices. The audience participation content further includes interactive content for obtaining spectator input from one or more spectators via the one or more spectator devices, respectively. The method includes augmenting the VR scene based on the spectator inputs in response to the interactive content of the audience participation content,” quoting the abstract.

In other words, other people in the room could use their phones (PlayLink has done that on the PlayStation 4 – when will this idea come back on PlayStation 5?) to mess with us during gameplay. It sounds like a party game to us, which was something common on the Nintendo Wii, or even the Nintendo 64, as Mario Party’s name already insists what it is for. (And it had items to screw the others over even in the last possible moment.)

Sony is working on a new PlayStation VR, let’s not even deny it. It should happen eventually, as the old model can’t be simply used with the PlayStation 5 unless you get an adaptor for the PlayStation Camera. And not all patents end up being used. So we should be patient about it being used or not.

Source: PSL