Sony Files Patent For New Game Cartridge For Some Reason

Sony’s PlayStation Vita didn’t see huge success when it launched in 2011, but that doesn’t mean the company has already given up on handheld or portable gaming. It’s been discovered recently that Sony filed a patent for a new type of game cartridge.

The patent for Sony’s new game cartridge was first discovered by the Dutch website Techtastic. The patent was filed in 2017 in South Korea, but it was only made public this month by the Korean Intellectual Property Right Information Service. The device is described in the patent as an “electronic game cartridge.” The patent doesn’t reveal a lot of information on how it works exactly, but it does hint at Sony’s interest in returning to portable gaming.

The patent comes with a couple of illustrations showing what the game cartridges could look like. The cartridge appears to have a connector of some kind at the bottom edge, which is presumably how it will connect to consoles or to a handheld gaming device. The cartridge itself is made of metal and synthetic resin materials, as pointed out by The Verge.

Earlier this year, PlayStation boss John Kodera said that that portable gaming and consoles shouldn’t be separated from one another. Instead, portable gaming should just be treated as one possible method of delivering games.

“In my opinion, rather than separating portable gaming from consoles, it’s necessary to continue thinking of it (portable gaming) as one method to deliver more gaming experiences and exploring what our customers want from portable,” Kodera said. “We want to think about many options.”

So, does this mean that Sony is making a sequel to the PS Vita handheld? Not necessarily. What’s possible, however, is that this patent may be related to a future PlayStation console of some kind. Perhaps this could be a way of making games more portable, but that’s just speculation at this point. It’s also important to point out that Sony Interactive Entertainment President Andrew House did say that they have no plans to re-enter the handheld gaming market.

“The Nintendo device is a hybrid device and that’s a different approach and strategy,” House said in September. “We have not seen that as being a huge market opportunity.”

On the whole, this patent may be hinting at things to come from Sony in the future, but PlayStation fans shouldn’t expect anything at this point when no confirmation is available. Big companies typically file patent applications for a wide variety of potential products and most of them don’t actually end up in store shelves.