Sony has registered a new patent at the United States Patent and Trademarks Office for something that would take VR to the next level. It is called a “Posture Control System” and the whole thing looks like something out of a science fiction movie, or an anime.
“Disclosed herein is a posture control system containing a posture control unit that changes a direction of a user’s body and a display unit mounted on a user’s head,” reads the abstract of the patent. “The posture control system includes: a posture data acquiring unit configured to acquire posture data indicating the direction of the user’s body; a motion sensor data acquiring unit configured to acquire motion sensor data indicating a direction of a user’s face in a real space which is detected by a motion sensor; a camera image data acquiring unit configured to acquire camera image data indicating the face direction with reference to the direction of the user’s body which is specified based on a camera image; and a face direction specifying unit configured to specify the direction of the user’s face based on the posture data, the motion sensor data, and the camera image data.”
Honestly the thing looks absolutely crazy and unless you have a full room dedicated to gaming your going to be in a rough spot finding room for this bad boy. Of course it could possibly be just to have the patent exist just in case so that no other company could claim it. But the reality is that if that person in the drawing is 5 foot, say they are short, the frame for it would be massive still.
The functionality of it is that your whole body becomes the controller. It reminds me of one of those Jurassic park balls that was in one of the more recent movies. Now if they make a game where you ride in one of those, that would be something. And let’s hope that they don’t come out with any games like Sword Art Online where something goes terribly wrong and you are forever stuck in this giant hamster ball of a contraption.
What do you think of this new patent? Would you want to own something like this? Tell us in the comments!
