Sony Envisions The State of Gaming In 2021

“I think what people want in games in 10 years is the perfect human being in digital form”, Shuhei Yoshida, President of Worldwide Studio at Sony, said according to Eurogamer. Yoshida was part of a panel on the future of video games at the ongoing Gamescom in Cologne, together with Sony’s 3D chief Mick Hocking, who added that the coming years will bring improved AI, enabling Yoshida’s vision to become a genuine possibility.

Hocking went on to liken the future gamer’s role in playing to be that of an actor, giving an example of a hypothetical detective game in which the player would take the role of the witness rather than the interrogator (as seen in LA Noire). Instead of the player wearing the fedora, trying to deduce what the witness knows, the game tries to figure you out via a camera, observing your body language and facial expressions.

“If they’re feeling sad, we can make them feel happy,” Hocking continued, saying that he envisioned games of 2021 to “…form a map of the player. Your facial expressions, your heart rate,” to see how the player’s emotional states change over time. Hocking also went on to say that he believed holographics would possibly be usable in future games, and that Sony was in the beginning of research and development on such a feature. Hocking also said that a forerunner to holographics already existed, as the Sony 3DTV and Eyetoy together can create an effect where you can take an object out of the TV and look around it.

Overall, the technology Sony is fantasizing about is very intriguing, but also a tad scary. With video game characters taking on more real likenessess and games tailored to giving you the emotional stimuli you need/want, where does the line between the real and the virtual lie? It’s becoming increasingly blurry.

Mick Hocking, 3D Chief at Sony