We’ve all been there. You are running around a game’s level or world stuck on what you’re supposed to be going next, so you’ll either get frustrated and stop playing or look up the solution. What if that became a thing of the past and if you got stuck you could ask someone or something and get an answer back straight away without having to search the web? Well, it appears Sony is working on some technology called PlayStation Assist which will use AI machine learning to provide players with real-time assistance if they get stuck.

According to the patent listing the main claim is as follows:

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. A method for providing gaming assistance, comprising: receiving over a network at a back-end server information related to a plurality of game plays of players for a gaming application; receiving a query from a first player playing the gaming application, the query related to a first game play of the first player; determining a current game context of the first game play; generating a response to query and the current game context based on the information related to the plurality of game plays; and sending the response to a device of the first player.

Essentially players will be able to ask PlayStation Assist for a solution, PlayStation Assist will look for a solution by studying the game or looking at data elsewhere and then relay the answer back to the user. This could be something like PlayStation Assist highlighting the entrance to the next area, or marking an area of interest in the game map. As a technology itself machine learning assisted AI is already part of life, with a number of websites using chatbots that utilises the tech to give answers to users, so PlayStation Assist is essentially the next step. You can view the full PlayStation Assist patent here.

Companies do submit a lot of patents and not all of them make their way to consumer use, but PlayStation Assist could be something of a differentiator for the PS5 if Sony chooses to implement it.

Source: WIPO via ZhugeEX