Sony Patents 'Helper Mode' for Spectated Video Games

gamerant.com:

While virtually every gaming company is eager to patent a potentially industry-defining idea well ahead of time, none of them have recently been quite as prolific as Sony. The company has submitted a whole slew of unique patent instances over the last couple of weeks and months, and while most of them are relatively uninteresting to the average gamer, others have the potential to well and truly make waves.

One of these potentially prospective Sony patents was submitted very recently, and it references a special feature that would allow streamers and their spectators to interact with the scope of the game they're playing and watching, respectively. The so-called «Helper Mode» would essentially allow the viewers to assist players in real-time, according to the listing in question.

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According to the patent description, Sony's idea for «Helper Mode» would support a number of unique implementations that would seemingly differ from one game to another. In some instances, this might mean drawing certain meta-data from the game, while in others, it might rely on bespoke developer-provided tools that would correlate streamers and spectators, perhaps through the use of a cloud gaming solution. This listing might even relate to Sony's player interaction tracking patent, which is intended to be used for harassment and abuse management in real-time.

Many of Sony's feature usage descriptions talk about using machine learning algorithms to facilitate cross-service interactions, in particular. Since the company is now seemingly fully dedicated to broadening the PlayStation PC gaming service offerings, investing in advanced streaming tech seems like an obvious step forward. Especially