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A new patent might reveal what Sony has planned for its next mobile device.
As reported by Techtastic (thanks, Engadget), a patent filed at the Korea Patent Office this time last year reveals Sony Interactive Entertainment Inc. has patented an "electronic game cartridge" device. The filing has just been made public.
There’s very, very little detail in the five-page document – the filing pretty much the only details that the device will be made of "synthetic resin, metal" – but from the few diagrams provided, it appears that the device will connect to/from a USB or HMDI port at one end.
As Engadget quite rightly purports, this kind of device would be in keeping with the comments made by Sony boss John Kodera back in May, when he suggested that "rather than separating portable gaming from consoles, it’s necessary to continue thinking of [portable gaming] as one method to deliver more gaming experiences".
Whether we’re looking at a new "Vita", a new console, something entirely new, and/or an idea that will never come to fruition (after all, not all patents do) remains to be seen.
Sony confirmed in September that it would cease production of the PlayStation Vita in Japan next year and had already taken the Vita out of its future plans with regards to PlayStation Plus’s free games. The company also advised developers and publishers it would no longer be producing physical copies of games for the system by the end of FY 2018 (March 2019). Outside of the platform holder, developers have also been moving away from the system as demand for Vita titles falls.
