It is no secret that many technology companies that we've come to know and love have voice assistants like Apple's (NASDAQ: APPL) Siri, Amazon's (NASDAQ: AMZN) Alexa and Microsoft's (NASDAQ: MSFT) Cortana, but now it might be time for Sony to throw it's hat in the ring. In recent news, Sony (NYSE: SNE) filed a patent for a new voice assistant called PlayStation Assist. News suggest that this voice assistant will be coming to the PlayStation 5.
The patent was filed back in March and was published on September 26. Since PlayStation 5 is said to be released in the holiday season of 2020. It is most likely that the patented idea is coming to Sony's newest console next year at the earliest. A Games Industry Analyst named Daniel Ahmad uncovered the patent, titled "Voice Help System Using Artificial Intelligence", on his Twitter (NASDAQ: TWTR) account. The patent detailed some ways that this PlayStation Assist might work. According to Ahmad, the voice assistant will be able to answer your in-game questions. You will be able to ask questions like "Where should I head next?" or "Where's the nearest health pack?"
According to the patent, mobile devices can also utilize PlayStation Assist to have information sent to the device that'll help players in-game. Some illustrations of the patent used Skyrim to sample the voice assistant. With Skyrim, one example was a player requesting more information about an enemy. Other images showed the voice assistant being used by Horizon: Zero Dawn. One of those images showed a map of the place the player is in within Horizon: Zero Dawn.
What makes PlayStation Assistant stand out from other voice assistants is that it specializes in gaming. You can ask Alexa and Google (NASDAQ: GOOGL) things about a game, but because they aren't directly linked to your game, their answers won't be as clear and informative. There is no guarantee that Sony will move forward with their plans, but if they do this will definitely be an interesting feature to see on the PlayStation 5.