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Sony Develops A Universal Game Console Controller

In an attempt to tackle competition from the likes of Microsoft and Nintendo, Sony is reportedly working on a game controller that can serve as a universal controller; capable of also being used with Xbox or Nintendo.

A patent regarding this was recently filed by the Sony at the USPTO. According to this, the game controller will be an LCD display based device that will display different key layouts depending on the console being used. The inventors write

“A game console controller includes a hand-holdable housing and a touch sensitive liquid crystal display (LCD) on the housing. The LCD is caused to present, depending on what type of game console a user has selected, a controller key layout for a first type of game console or a controller key layout for a second type of game console. A key layout includes plural keys selectable by a user to input commands to a game console.”

Sony Universal Game Controller for Playstation

With increasing number of households going for multiple game consoles, it is evident that Sony wants Playstation to be at least one of them. By providing a universal controller, it can ensure that PS remains the default console in the house with the second device being one of Nintendo or Xbox.

What do you think of this strategy?

11 replies on “Sony Develops A Universal Game Console Controller”

I think that Nintendo already have an universal controller since it can be used by other devices.

Already there is support for Windows and to some extent Windows Mobile (I have been working with the latter).

So the question isn’t about having an universal controller but if the protocol used for controllers is generic enough to be understood by other consoles.

Considering this is a patent application, it is also simply possible that Sony wants to make it tougher for competition to pull their customers toward them by patenting such a technology. However, as with all patents (some of which are also prior arts), it only gives an indication of what the company is up to and the strategies they might be looking at for the future.

is it just me, or is this somewhat outdated, as newer consoles are looking at new types of input (wii’s accelerometer based controller, or video camera input, etc)… controllers may be entirely unnecessary soon enough, this seems a little… late

though it’d have been really nice to have this type of universal controller 10 yrs ago

For all the fanboys&girls for nintendo and microsoft just stop crying about this is a great idea and ur mad bc Noone else thought of this and Sony is so epic I believe that this is just following up to something else that will b greater even tho they dominated with the PS PS2 PSP PSPGO and last and def not least(actually the best in the biz) PS3

NH That’s and excellent point and if so would they share that information?

Oh and SonyFanBoy4Life. Why don’t you just go marry a sony playstation.

hmm 1 dpad, 2 anlogue, 4pad buttons and 4 shoulder buttons, stop start= covers all preasant button counts- if stop/start were incorporated into the lcd touchscreen to save space and keep to ps3 shape- the plan design don’t look encouraging….

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