A new Sony UI patent that’s just been listed might be heralding a UI change in the Playstation 5’s outlook, or it could be one of the pieces of technology the company is already preparing for future Playstation consoles. It seems to be a method of being able to access other applications without leaving the game, as according to the patent:
“The window can be pinned to the GUI and user control can automatically switch to another application.”
Xbox had a similar system to this in the form of the Snap system, which was on the Xbox One but was discontinued due to RAM issues. However, it seems like Sony is aiming to give something like that a try of their own in order to help make swapping to different apps quick and easy. The patent’s background explains it further.
“To stream music, the video game player may need to pause the execution of the video game application, switch back to the home page, and select the music streaming icon.”
The Sony UI patent’s background description even agrees that such a method of having to swap between various applications and functions on the console isn’t very practical or seamless, thus the reason for this patent to begin with. Going by the patent, the new UI would help players to compartmentalize things through a series of windows.
“Upon user input requesting a menu, the menu is presented in a layer over at least a portion of the first layer of content based on an execution of a menu application.”
The layers would grow and shrink as players made their way through them, and then could all go back into the background once players have found what they want, all without having to leave their game and head back to the Playstation 5’s dashboard. For more information about this patent you can follow this link to the Sony UI patent’s documentation.