Sony has recently published a patent that has been the subject of speculation. The patent was updated and published on October 2nd, 2018, with the patent originally being filed on November 22nd, 2016. Patents filed are often scrutinized for number of things, primarily the fact that it means nothing concrete a large amount of the time. Just because a company files a patent does not mean that the patented concept will release as a product. Sony is well known for this as well, filing patents that never release or come to use, some of which are a little more outlandish than others.
The patent filed by Sony that created so much stir, is registered to Sony Interactive Entertainment America LLC, the company behind PlayStation. The patent, in summary, is about remastering the graphics of older software into graphics of higher resolution and loading them in when they are put into the system on the fly. This is done by using unique identifiers for each piece of software and having artists remaster the graphics for each game prior. This is also going to be done for audio when possible, presenting remastered audio when available and when not, using the original audio.
Many believe that these unique features mentioned in the patent are a clear indication that Sony is attempting to join the market in allowing backwards compatibility on their next console, a feature already celebrated in Microsoft’s Xbox One. The argument against it being a new feature for the next console in the PlayStation family is that the patent was originally filed in 2016; all the patent could be describing is features that are already used in the PlayStation 4 when running PlayStation 1 and PlayStation 2 software.
The argument can also be made that nothing has been confirmed officially by PlayStation or Sony, as such it is possible that the patent described could be just another that is never used in a commercial product. Only time will tell whether or not the patent will come to be a feature for whatever console Sony makes as the PlayStation 4’s successor.