The next wave of online gaming is going to usher in a new era of opportunities based on artificial intelligence
The artificial intelligence (AI) sector seems to be developing at a fast pace, and, even though it has been present for years, the video game industry can perhaps be considered as the guinea pig of this advancing technology. It has been, until recent times, that the scope of AI was applied to other functionalities in the video game world, but Sony might be introducing AI in the form of microtransactions for its next-generation console, the PlayStation 5. This new addition to the game console promises to revolutionize the way games are played and offer a lot of potential for profit coming from internal sales.
On Monday, Sony announced that it had just received a patent granted by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) for registering this AI software for an in-console assistant. This innovation could provide unlucky players who get stuck in a PS5 game personalized assistance at a very reasonable cost. It could be seen as one of those Siri or Alexa software that provides updates about different things, though in this case, a minor fee will be charged every time it is used.
This doesn’t mean that Sony is the first publisher to ever announce AI assistance within a game, and Google Stadia incorporated the Google Assistant functionality into the cloud gaming platform. The difference is that Sony is the first one to suggest that this personalized help will come with a fee for using it.
And these are just one of the functionalities that this feature will eventually have, as it could also be used for gamers who want to enter specific game areas reserved for other bundles, and have the option to purchase without exiting the game, which could certainly boost those sales. “There may be an in-game resource of the game environment that could aid the user in accomplishing the objective with the character,” according to the patent. “The in-game resource may be downloadable content (DLC), add-ons, upgrades, items, tips, strategy, communal data, etc. However, the user is not necessarily aware that such a resource exists.”