New PlayStation Patent Teases Major PS5 Upgrade

By Logan Moore

A new PlayStation patent has teased that a notable upgrade for the PlayStation 5 could be coming soon. Although video game consoles used to only be able to do what their internal components allowed for, in our current day and age, companies like Sony and Microsoft have been able to improve consoles occasionally thanks to new firmware updates. And while no such new firmware update for the PS5 is set to release in the near future, it looks like the platform's graphical functions could be getting much better sometime soon. 

Spotted by user @Onion00048 on Twitter recently, Sony recently filed a new patent associated with the PlayStation 5 which could hint at new graphical capabilities for the system. Specifically, this patent was filed by Mark Cerny, who was the architect of the PS5. The patent itself states that Sony is looking into "accelerated ray tracing" for the PS5, which essentially means that games that offer ray tracing would end up seeing a sizable improvement. At this point in time, ray tracing can be found in a number of different titles on PS5, but its inclusion often comes at the cost of performance and resolution. Based on what has been outlined in this patent, Sony may have found a way to improve ray tracing while not needing to dampen the resolution or performance of a title at the same time.

It's worth stressing that even though Sony has now filed this patent associated with ray tracing for the PS5, it doesn't mean that this feature will ever end up actually coming to the console. In recent years, Sony has filed a number of different patents for various technologies associated with PlayStation. And while some of these ideas have been implemented with the PS5, others have simply never come to fruition. As such, it's hard to know what to make of this new patent for the time being. 

Still, what do you think about this idea in practice based on what has been described? Is this something that you would love to see added to the PS5? Let me know your own reaction either down in the comments or you can message me on Twitter at @MooreMan12.

[H/T VGC]

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