I stumbled upon this article that reports on a new patent by PlayStation for temperature in their haptic feedback.
Controller patents seem to be a huge area where video game and console developers patent technology. There have been massive innovations in controller tech over the decades, and it’s always interesting to see what will come up next.
From personal experience, the haptic feedback on the PS5 controller is pretty impressive already, temperature could add a whole new element to the experience.
When Nintendo came out with HD rumble, that was another really interesting innovation that had many unique gameplay applications. Another example is the Nintendo D-Pad, a pretty infamous patent that caused competitors Microsoft and Sony to use a slightly different style of D-Pad (that was quite infuriatingly not as good of a design).
It’s also interesting to read the actual patent itself, specifically the claim section. It is interesting to see how technically the claims are crafted. It reminds me of in class, when Prof. Festinger explained that you should only claim things in your patent that your invention will actually do and that false claims are grounds for a patent to be rejected. It’s definitely worth looking at a patent or two to get an idea of what they look like!
Communications Law