This DualSense controller patent could change the way we pause our games

techradar.com:

This clever Sony patent could mean the end of pesky away-from-keyboard timers if it goes into testing.

Ever had to drop your controller while playing one of your favorite FPS games to answer the door, only to return to find your character sprawled dead on the ground cruelly slain by some hidden enemy? What if there were a way your controller could pause the game for you simply by putting it down?

This is what the makers of the “method of detecting idle controller”(opens in new tab) patent are gunning for. The patent, submitted to Sony in 2021 and published this year on November 3, suggests using a combination of existing motion sensor technology and camera feed information to add a feature to the DualSense Wireless Controller which would autonomously pause games when the player set their PS5 controller down.

After news of the feature was posted on a prominent gaming forum(opens in new tab), PS5 users took time to weigh the pros and cons.

“So I change position to get comfy and the game randomly pauses itself?? No thank you”, one user says, while another points out that Sony would do well to increase the DualSense controller’s battery life first before spending time developing other features.

If the patent were to go through, not only would it become one of the near-36,000 granted Sony patents(opens in new tab) globally, but it could totally revamp in-game pause systems.

The patent explains that right now, “when a user puts down… a controller, the game does not know if the user is a way or simply not responding”. This triggers the start of a lengthy AFK timer that usually begins the moment you go idle in a game. This can take as long as 20 minutes to time out for certain games, and only then will the game register you as