New Patent from Sony: Heart Rate Monitoring in Gamers
Four new patents recently filed by Sony Interactive Entertainment focus on biometric sensors like heart rate monitors. These patents aim to adapt games based on players’ real-time emotional responses, dynamically adjusting difficulty, making NPCs more or less reactive, and even automatically highlighting important moments.
Difficulty Adjusted Based on Heart Rate
Sony’s first patent suggests that games could detect a player’s heart rate and adjust difficulty accordingly. When the game detects a rising heart rate, it can lower the difficulty level to avoid overwhelming the player, or make things more intense when it feels the player is too comfortable.
“For example, a scene that causes higher heart rates could allow up to two game characters to enter a virtual room in the game,” the patent states. It also states, “Weapon aiming difficulty could be increased or decreased in response to biometric feedback.”
The second patent introduces technology that uses heart rate data to automatically highlight the most exciting moments in a game. When a player’s heart rate exceeds a certain threshold, a bookmark will be added to the gameplay footage, creating a clip of a certain amount of time before and after the clip is selected.
The patents also highlight the potential for using machine learning to control NPC behavior based on the player’s heart rate. An NPC’s behavior could change depending on the player’s physiological state.
These innovative patents from Sony present exciting opportunities to personalize and enhance the gaming experience. We eagerly await whether these technologies will be integrated into future PlayStation games.
Read More: Sony Announced New Free to Play Gran Turismo Game
