New Sony Patent Lets you Make Almost Anything a Controller

Controllers are the tools we use to communicate with our games — some controllers, like the N64 controller, go down in history for how awful they are. While others, like the reliable PlayStation controller, are so well-loved and well-designed, that they functionally have a cult following. But Sony is perhaps a bit tired of their reliable black monolith, and have just patented a system that would allow them to turn a banana into a controller.

Take that, mouse and keyboard chads.

To be fair, it’s not exclusively bananas: the patent says that it could use any "non-luminous passive object" as a controller, and the examine image just happens to be of a banana. But “non-luminous passive objects” are everywhere, from handbags to water bottles to roadkill to chairs.

The system is cleverly straightforward: using a camera, the software could recognize the object that’s supposed to be a controller, and from there, it can either map buttons onto its shape (so you could “press” a hypothetical button on your banana to make your character jump), or you could use it as motion controls, moving the banana around to, say, adjust your camera. They even say you could add a second object, like an orange, and use both of them to mimic something like driving a car or holding a gun.

Super exciting? Sure. But also just a patent, and just because a company patents something doesn’t mean they plan to use it for anything, like the recent EA lawsuit has showcased. That said, unlike EA’s dynamic difficulty patent, I think most people would actually like to see something like this come to fruition — imagine showing up to your friend’s house with a bag of chips, realizing you forgot your controller, and using the chips to play Towerfall instead?

That is a future I can get behind.