Anti-Spoiler PlayStation Service Patented by Sony

Sony has patented a service which would presumably block its PlayStation users from viewing [...]

By Tanner Dedmon

Sony has patented a service which would presumably block its PlayStation users from viewing content that would spoil something in a game for them. The patent which was filed in October 2019 was recently discovered and details a "Cross-Platform Spoiler Block Service" which would ideally be able to determine which parts of games players have made it to and appropriately block content from certain services which may spoil parts of the game if players haven't gotten to them yet. Items, trophies, and other parts of games were mentioned in the patent description, and while there was no mention of the next-gen PlayStation 5, this sounds as though it could be a feature planned for the console.

The patent found in the United States Patent and Trademark Office and reported on by PlayStation Lifestyle provided a summary of the patent's purpose filled with the typically dense wording of these patents, but we can take away some parts of the patent's purpose from the description.

"Computer implemented systems and methods for cross-platform spoiler blocking are provided herein," the patent description read. "An example method includes ascertaining by a data platform data potentially available to a user of a service having a media object; identifying by the data platform at least one object revealed by the media object, the at least one object being associated with an application; receiving by the data platform metadata associated with the at least one object, the metadata indicative of whether the at least one object should be hidden from the user; determining by the data platform, based on the metadata, the at least one object is a potential spoiler; and blocking by the data platform, the user from interacting with the media object through the service."

PlayStation Spoiler Patent
(Photo: United States Patent and Trademark Office)

Elsewhere in the patent was the image above that shows how the service would work when implemented. Specific parts of games which could be blocked include "a trophy, user generated content, an activity, a character, a weapon, an entity, a setting, an outcome, an action, an effect, a location, a video, a community thread, a level, an item, a character, and character statistics."

There's been talk in the past based on other patents which indicates that the PlayStation 5 could have some sort of voice-based assistant feature to help players with their games. It's possible this spoiler-blocking service could be used in conjunction with that to make sure the assistant isn't sharing more information than necessary.

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