PlayStation is working on NFT and blockchain technology for video games, as per Sony patent
Sony’s new patent would look to track the history of each in-game item such as when they were created, used, modified, rented out, sold, purchased, licensed, traded and more.
Sony Interactive Entertainment has published a new patent which suggests that PlayStation is working on the use of NFTs and blockchain technology in games. The patent, termed ‘Tracking Unique In-Game Digital Assets Using Tokens on a Distributed Ledger’, is about a system that can be used to track the creation, use, modification and transfer of digital assets created in a game. They’d also involve assets based on the gameplay such as video clips and screenshots of a game.
Sony to focus on NFT and blockchain technology for video games
This Sony patent was originally filed last year and got published this month, as reported first by Gamesual.
Sony’s patent says, “In some video games, a player can use digital assets during gameplay. Such digital assets can include, for example, specific characters, costumes, or items. In traditional video games, multiple instances of the same in-game item exist within the same copy of the video game and/or within different copies of the video game.”
The patent explains in depth, how in-game items work in traditional video games, and how this patent would look to create a way to track them. Traditional video games have in-game items that may be rare but can be obtained or earned by any player in the game via objectives, loot boxes and a variety of other ways. Hence, none of the in-game items are unique and thus, do not carry an identifier which separates each copy from the rest.
Track history of in-game items such as weapon skins
“These different instances of the same in-game item are traditionally fungible, as they are indistinguishable from one another. For instance, even if a particular in-game item is rare to obtain within the video game, the in-game item is represented in the video game as a string of code that is identical to representations of other instances of the same in-game item in the same video game, and / or in other copies of the same video game. Thus, in traditional video games, no one digital asset is unique from other instances of the same in-game item,” reads the patent.
They added, “The techniques and technologies described herein expand the capabilities of digital assets associated with video games, and of systems that create and manage such digital assets, by converting the digital assets associated with video games from being fungible to being non-fungible.”
The company would look to “expand the functionality of digital assets associated with video games” which enables “tracking a history of the digital assets.”
Sony’s new patent would look to convert these fungible items into non-fungible tokens so that they can track the history of each in-game item such as when they were created, used, modified, rented out, sold, purchased, licensed, traded and more.
“Tracking the history of the digital assets can include, for example, tracking when, how, and by whom the digital asset was created, used, modified, rented to, rented by, sold to, purchased by, licensed to, licensed by, exchanged to, exchanged by, and / or other actions,” says the Sony patent.