Sony filed for a new patent late last week for a mechanism seemingly meant to pair with the PSVR. The “Posture Control System,” as it’s named in the patent, is a gyroscopic, full-body device which “changes a direction of the user’s body and a display unit mounted on the user’s head.” The Sony patent seems to indicate that the machine responds to the player’s own movements as input for the VR experience, instead of moving the player’s body to match a premade adventure (such as a VR roller coaster).
It’s important to remember with patents, however, that there is no guarantee that the invention a company has filed for is currently being developed or will ever be developed. Sony could want to create this machine, or the company may be aiming to prevent others from submitting patents for similar gyroscopic virtual reality apparatuses until the patent has expired. My money is on the former, being that the verbiage in the patent is fairly descriptive of the machine’s function. Most likely, Sony has experimented with or even made a prototype of a device akin to the one in the patent.
Assuming that this is something Sony is planning on deploying here in the future, it’s fun to speculate on what its purpose could be. Upon initial inspection of the device, the thing appears to be massive! I’d say that it’s too large for any sort of residential use. (At least this iteration of it anyway.) Perhaps, in the future, Sony might compact it into a device that could more easily accent your living room. For now, I think we are more likely to see this in arcades, theme parks, or even places such as The Void. At this point, we can only wait and see what becomes of this interesting move from Sony.
Now it’s your turn to speculate. What do you think Sony has in mind with this machine? Where could we be seeing it in the future? Let me know your ideas below!
