After this week’s State of Play, which announced ‘Hitman VR’ and ‘Braid Anniversary Edition’, all eyes are now back on the PlayStation 5.
We are now in early August and nothing has been confirmed about price or release dates as yet for the console, but patents are still being discovered that could crawl back the veil of what features could be coming to it.
Saving has been a trait of the PlayStation ever since the ‘Memory Card’, trading saves between friends, making sure that there’s enough ‘blocks’ free to swap that valuable Tekken 3 save.
Which is why this patent has raised a few eyebrows, as it seems as though saving between friends could be a welcomed-feature for the PS5. Here’s what the patent entails.
Cross-Save
From the patent, it states that the feature ‘enables users to share playable video game segments with users so that the users are able to view the video game segments or interactively play the video game segments’.
It seems as though that when someone plays Call of Duty for example, a friend in your list can share a save-state with someone, and it can bring them to that certain point in the game, without having to use cheats or even saves downloaded from the internet.
The patent goes on to state that ‘When shared, state information for the video game segments is included such that the users begin in the same position with the same relevant statistics. By enabling video game sharing, user enjoyment and video game popularity are increased’.
User enjoyment ‘is increased’ doesn’t sound the most enticing, but this is a patent, and it needs to explicitly state just how the feature will be used. It sounds like a newer version of the ‘SharePlay’ feature from PS4, where someone watches a video of a friend playing a certain game.
READ MORE: PlayStation Console Design Evolution.
Sharing is Caring
To those who have owned a PlayStation 1 or 2 in the past, we all remember when we would take out that ‘Memory Card’, and slot it into our friend’s console to show them another part of a level, or even what certain special items are when the game is completed. The ‘Stealth’ item in Metal Gear Solid comes to mind.
But it’s always important to put in the disclaimer that patents may only just be, patents. They may not go anywhere and will just be a way to protect the company who have invented the feature.
But it’s an innovative idea, and if you take into account PS Now and whatever Sony decide with backwards-compatibility, it could help a huge amount of games for the PS5.
Hopefully we hear more about features like these that are announced for the console, as we’re fast-approaching the release-calendar for the console, and many people are waiting to spend on that pre-order.
READ MORE: PS5 News TODAY; Design, Amazon UK page, more.