One of the main goals of the upcoming generation of consoles is no doubt to drastically reduce load times, if not removing them outright. That’s certainly one of the goals of Sony’s next platform, still unofficially entitled the PlayStation 5. And a recent patent may show just how Sony plans on doing just that.
The patent is known as the “System and method for dynamically loading game software for smooth play.” In essence, it aims to reduce load times by loading data before a player can reach a certain point.
As for how that’s accomplished, it’s done by tracking the player character. This is then used to load areas the player approaches, but before they actually reach the location in question. Any given area would be broken up into segments, therefore making this loading process much smoother. If successful, it would allow for a seamless transition in-between areas.
One of the biggest selling points of the forthcoming console is a dramatic reduction of loading times. One of the pivotal components of the system is its “specialized” solid state drive. We got just a taste of how this could work thanks to a presentation showing Marvel’s Spider-Man in action. Load times were compared between a PlayStation 4 Pro and a PlayStation 5, and the result was staggering. That was a PlayStation 4 game, though, so we shall see how this applies to PlayStation 5 games.
It should be noted, however, that this doesn’t seem to aim to eliminate load times altogether. It would result in the most drastic reduction we’ve seen yet, though. We also don’t know whether this patent is part of the current PlayStation 5 makeup, or rather something Sony is planning for down the road. Patents don’t mean we’ll actually see this idea executed, but it’s certainly clear that reducing load times is a priority for Sony. Whatever the PlayStation 5 ends up being, it seems like load times in the future will be nothing compared to what they were on the PlayStation 4.
[Source: IGN]
