Sony’s got a track record for doing adverts rather well. Its Bravia ads in particular are pretty awe-inspiring. You know the ones with the bouncing balls and the exploding paint? Yeah. That. Thing is, that doesn’t mean that the company gets it right all the time. In fact, we’d say the power’s gone to Sony’s head, as it’s just filed a patent application to bring game-freezing adverts to its consoles. And maybe the Sony PS4…
The patent application in question is called ‘Advertisement scheme for use with interactive content’ and details a process of serving you ads (in this case for some delicious soda) mid-game.
The process is horrifyingly anti-gaming. First off, the game will flash up a warning that an ad is about to appear, before slowing down and eventually freezing the gameplay. Once you’ve been sufficiently brainwashed into buying whatever shiny treat’s onscreen, the game would rewind “at least a portion of the interactive content” before letting you play again.
Sony PS4: Everything you need to know
Madness. Absolute madness. We should point out that this is still just a patent application, which means Sony’s not yet been granted the full right to ruin gaming. But if that happens, would this tech filter into the PS4?
Surely that throws up a whole host of questions about what Sony’s plans are when it comes to paying for games. You can’t really serve ads to people who’ve paid full price for content, so maybe Sony’s got plans on adopting a the same model as apps, where it dishes out free games but stuffs them full of adverts?
Read the full application in the source link below, and let us know your thoughts…
Via NeoGAF
