While the company has never been particularly shy about its attempts to stay on the cutting edge of tech and gadgetry, Sony's recent slew of patent submissions and attempts to move into previously uncontested branches of the industry are not going unnoticed. The maker of PlayStation seems, quite simply, eager to leave a mark, and this is unlikely to change anytime soon.
One of Sony's more noteworthy endeavors is a feature by the name of "Spoiler Block Service," as described in the company's latest patent submission form. According to the patent, the company is working on a way to block potential content spoilers in user-generated content from ever popping up, which would be a huge boon for story-heavy games that have historically released on PlayStation with great success.
Following in the footsteps of Sony's browser-based cloud gaming patent, the purported spoiler-blocking functionality is still in the conceptualization stages of development, by the looks of it. The patent explains that Sony wishes to reduce the stress felt by spoiler-averse players when engaging with the community, and aims to accomplish this by attaching meta-data of some sort to specific objects in the given instance of user-generated content. Ideally, this would then lead to a situation where spoilers are blacked-out or otherwise hidden away, according to the patent in question.
.jpg?q=50&fit=crop&w=1500&dpr=1.5)
Sony is doing everything it can to prepare for the next stage of the game streaming craze. Some may recall that the company submitted a special "Helper Mode" patent for stream viewers, which would allow them to interact with the streamer themselves through contextual gameplay options. It's not impossible that Sony would base its spoiler blocking features on some underlying code that could be shared between the different patented functions, as described in official listings.
In fact, now that PS Plus Extra and Premium have established a pattern and Sony managed to establish said services in a renewed format, it very well could be that the company is hoping to host a dedicated streaming service all of its own. If Sony were to offer all of its patented features exclusively through some sort of PlayStation-branded streaming service, it's not unreasonable to assume that many content creators would jump ship from platforms such as Twitch.
While this may sound like a stretch, Sony's patents are certainly painting a curious picture by now, and the idea of a PlayStation streaming platform certainly isn't a bigger stretch than having Sony sell PC gaming gear. Yet, that's precisely what's happening with Sony's new Inzone hardware brand. Of course, the patented features will take a while before they make a mainstream appearance, if they ever launch in the first place, but it's clear that Sony has big plans for the future.