Dark Light

Sony has filed a patent for an AI voice assistant that called PlayStation Assist that will answer player queries with in-game responses.

Games industry analyst Daniel Ahmad has posted details of a new patent filed by Sony for a voice-powered AI assistant called PlayStation Assist.

As with other consumer voice services – such as Siri, Alexa, or Cortana – the assistant will answer spoken user queries with instant contextual responses. In this case, responses that can be used or displayed in the game a user is playing.

Ahmad uses the example of asking PlayStation Assist for the location of a health-pack, with the nearest one then highlighted on the game’s map.

The full patent filing is listing on the Patent Scope website and is described as:

“A method for gaming assistance. Information related to a plurality of game plays of players for a gaming application is received over a network at a back-end server. A query is received from a first player playing the gaming application, wherein the query is related to a first game play of the first player. A current game context of a first game play of a first player is determined from the information. A response to the query and the current game context is generated based on the information related to the plurality of game plays. The response is delivered back to a device of the first player.”

There’s no indication on whether PlayStation Assist will be exclusive to games developed for the upcoming PlayStation 5, but the patent indicates that mobile devices can be used to input queries and display responses.

If PlayStation Assist can ‘press X’ without any confusion, we’ll consider it a success.


Visit the Thumbsticks new releases section for regular updates on the latest PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch games. You can also follow us on Flipboard or Twitter.

Related Posts