Patent applications are a great way to find out things that people are making, or working on, here’s a glimpse into some of Sony’s ideas.
Patent applications are one of the many ways to get a glimpse into the inner workings and ideas that Sony and other companies are concocting in their R&D laboratories, as well as providing a first look into the Vita’s back touch panel, and the Playstation Monitor. However, this time we are seeing the US Patent Office has revealed something completely different, an PlayStation controlled interactive toy.
Does anyone remember Microsoft ActiMate? This was a toy that would interact with it’s show, but it failed to sell upon its release in 1997, Sony seems to draw inspiration from this while the patent mentioning the ActiMate’s name several times.
However this was originally filed back in 2008, the recently published patent shows Sony Computer Entertainment Europe’s aim to improve upon the ActiMate adding in better technology and integrating the PlayStation products, such as the PSP and PS3. SCEE explained why they thought the ActiMate Failed:
“The success of such interactive toys depends on there being a good range of titles for the toy to interact with both at launch and into the future. It is also dependent on whether parents will buy a comparatively expensive toy whilst believing it will require further purchases of videos to maintain their child’s interest.
The present invention aims to mitigate or alleviate the above problem.”
The wireless, USB and Ethernet ports also allo the toy to connect to “other peripheral devices in addition to game controllers”, the PlaysStation Portable and the EyeTroy. It also means that “the interactive toy may be readily arranged to communicate with the PS3 via wifi or Bluetooth wireless link.” So when a PS3 is loaded with either a DVD or a blu-ray disk with support from the toy it will connect to its device and interact accordingly:
“Where a toy is not licensed to interact fully with a media disk, the PS3 can issue generic interaction instructions that follow the spirit of the interactive content on the disk, allowing the toy for example to give generic positive and negative comments as appropriate. This avoids frustration by the user, who as a child is likely to be unaware of and unconcerned by licensing issues.
Thus alternatively or in addition, rather than sending a specific instruction to perform a specific action, the PS3 could send a more abstract instruction such as ‘act surprised’ that is interpreted by the toy according to the resources it has available – for example, the ability to throw up its arms, or to select an appropriate phrase from a built in vocabulary. More generally, such a layer of abstraction can simplify and reduce the amount of supplementary data needed, as it allows each type of toy to react in character without the need for different supplementary data tracks. A number of such basic responses could be codified and pre-programmed within suitably enabled toys.”
Similarly from ActiMate, the Toy will be able to move its limbs on its own accord, and will have far more control, be able to sense human touch, and possibly even have “a refillable liquid reservoir and a liquid release means (for something similarly to tears).”
Looking forward to this? Think it will be a hit?
