We at PRG have had some opinions voiced on generative artificial intelligence — or “GenAI” for short — and apparently Sony wants us to keep having them, I guess. What other reason is there that would explain this new PlayStation podcast patent that, although filled in late 2024, was only granted to the company this week?
The patent in question essentially allows Sony to create GenAI fake podcasts hosted and voiced by the PlayStation maker’s most high profiled characters, with the notion of telling gamers what’s new with their own gaming system.
Reading the PlayStation podcast patent’s description, it starts out by highlighting the following: “video game platforms currently lack the ability to provide unique and targeted content to gamers to update the gamers about things that are happening on the platform. There are currently no adequate solutions to the foregoing computer-related, technological problem.”
Yes, really.
Sony’s answer to this oh-so-impossibly-difficult-obstacle is to create a fake, news bite voice piece that may or may not be voiced by Kratos, highlighting the “What’s New” part of your PlayStation 5 experience. Or, again, paraphrasing the patent: “generate a podcast of news related to the data, with the podcast presenting the news in a voice of a video game character of a video game played by the video game player.”
How would this PlayStation podcast patent even work?
Let’s open this part up by getting the obvious out of the way: this is a granted patent on a technology that may or may not be implemented on PlayStation machines. For all effects and purposes, Sony is doing nothing with this as of now — and may not even touch this in the future. So there’s that.
Getting back on topic, this new PlayStation podcast patent essentially leverages the ability of GenAI to create voice bites from PlayStatin characters. Said bites would come in the form of a “Your personalized podcast is available for today” notification shown every time you fire up your console and, should you choose to click on it, telling you what’s new, but in a tailored manner.
Yup, because there’s also that: whatever “news” this feature brings will be more closely related to your gaming history, either by what you’re playing, or maybe game pages you may have accessed and bookmarked — anything that connects your PlayStation Network profile to this or that title.
Furthermore, the AI part would also be able to generate crossover moments, where you might have one character from one game carrying full conversations with a character from another game — almost like if two white dudes had opinions and a microphone (Editor’s note: why are you linking to OUR podcast???).
There is, of course, the practical side: players would be able to customize the experience, choosing types of content that would make into the news or not, or even game recommendations that the user may wanna try based on their playing history and whatnot.
Also, making jokes about you because, again, white dudes with a mic (Editor’s note: really? Another one…wow, ok)…
