Only one patent has surfaced so far, so it’s unclear if the project will come to fruition, but it could be a revolutionary innovation for the gaming industry.

But patents can sometimes turn into finished products. In the past, this was the case with Project Q, which was eventually released as PlayStation Portal. According to Statista, Sony’s most profitable segment is games and network services, which includes PlayStation. Xbox has also talked about the need to make games available to as many people as possible so they can play anywhere, and that’s a line of thinking Sony may be following.

Sony Interactive Entertainment (SIE) filed a patent in February for a robotic utility and interface device, or RUID. It would play a similar role to Amazon’s Alexa or Apple’s Siri, but would be able to interact with the real world. RUID would be able to move around the home, record audio and video, and analyze the data. It could also project information onto an appropriate surface. For example, a user could ask for advice on how to mount their bicycle and RUID would project this onto the wall.

RUID would be able to run a game and use the camera(s) to analyze what it could project onto properly, and also provide real-time assistance, because if we asked it to give us a strategy, it could do that. This is in line with what Sony has been doing lately (difficulty based on player ability, games made more accessible), as RUID could be negotiated as a game fine-tuned for some individuals.

The definition is that controllers could be wirelessly connected to RUID. Not only could it work with PlayStation controllers, but it could also mean that Sony could integrate a controller into the robot’s arm and we could take it off to play, or the robot could bring it to us. The patent also mentions that the robot could even be configured so that a user with a head-mounted display could ride it while interacting with the virtual reality world. Perhaps it could be ridden, but it sounds more like the definition is that the RUID would provide movements that would match what happens in a VR game.

The idea is interesting, but will it actually happen?

Source: GameRant, Statista, Nweon