Featured Image Credit: Sony, Microsoft
Topics: PlayStation 5, PlayStation, Sony, Xbox, Microsoft
Microsoft has just filed a patent for a suspiciously familiar piece of PlayStation tech, leading many to believe that the next generation of Xbox hardware may be taking a leaf out of Sony’s book.
Thank you in advance to Shahmeer Sarfaraz over on Tech4Gamers who originally spotted this!
The “US20240419250” patent was found over on the World Intellectual Property Organisation site and was filed by Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC.
The patent is described as “a device configured to generate haptic feedback” and notes that the controller “includes a housing, a connector, and a haptic motor”.
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As for what this has to do with Sony, the PlayStation 5 DualSense controller features something extremely similar to the patent that Microsoft has filed.
In case you’re not entirely sure what exactly haptic feedback is, I’ll give you the short version: it’s like the vibration/rumble tech present in older controllers, except fancier.
Haptic feedback (or at least the version of it present in the PlayStation 5 DualSense controller) is supposed to feel tailored to the action that takes place on the screen.
Astro Bot demonstrates haptic feedback perfectly.
A good example of this is in Horizon Zero Dawn where holding your bow’s drawstring too tight for too long will cause the haptic feedback to kick in to better simulate the feeling of the physical stress Aloy is under.
Really it shouldn’t be too much of a surprise that Microsoft wants to do something similar with their next generation of Xbox consoles, especially if they want to stay ahead of the curve.
The real juicy part of this, to me at least, is that this is proof that Microsoft is farther into the development side of the next Xbox console than some might have assumed.
It probably means a reveal is still a far ways off, but perhaps means that we might see a new Xbox console at some point in the next couple of years.