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Sony Games

Sony: Emotion-Reading Games Possible In Ten Years 69

Posted by Soulskill from the level-up-by-experiencing-a-towering-rage dept.
Calidreth writes "At Gamescom last week two of Sony's executives stated their belief that in merely ten years' time, video games will have the ability to read more than just movement on the part of the player. Reading player emotions will be a key feature that is possible now and might be implemented into games in the future."
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Sony: Emotion-Reading Games Possible In Ten Years More

Sony: Emotion-Reading Games Possible In Ten Years

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  • Oh dear... (Score:3)

    by Aardpig ( 622459 ) on Wednesday August 24, 2011 @01:37AM (#37187904)
    ...they will have to install special self-preservation chips inside consoles, so they don't commit seppuku when an Emo kid plays on them.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by jhoegl ( 638955 )
      I can see it now...

      Clippy: I see you are trying to commit seppuku, would you like help with that?

    • They really just need to figure out drunk vs sober.

      • What they really need is deep enough gameplay to utilise such a feature. What are they going to do with emotion reading games if the games are all two dimensional characterless rehashes? You are playing a first person shooter, a bot shoots you, it makes you sad, so the bot stands out in the open and lets you shoot him back? Yay what a game altering feature. What about a scripted one dimensional storyline game where you watch endless cutscenes and you only real choice is "continue?". Oh the player is disgust

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by msauve ( 701917 )
      What Sony really needs are emotion sensing executives.

      • mod parent up! for the love of God!!!!

        I'm not sure I really want the box to know my emotions. When playing MW3 I tend to say "that's bullshit!" when someone shoots me. Of course it isn't really bullshit, that person is actually better than me.

      • This. (Score:2)

        by sconeu ( 64226 )

        I don't see how this will work, since Sony management is so lousy at detecting the emotions of the criminals^Wcustomers out there using their products.

  • Ninja Gaiden will know when it's pissing me off? And then it'll, what, get even harder?

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by mkraft ( 200694 )

      I'd think this could be done now. Game systems with motion controllers should be able to tell when the controller hits the wall when thrown out of frustration. I suppose the Xbox 360 is at a disadvantage though since there's nothing to throw with Kinnect, unless you throw some random nearby item and the Kinnect sees it. That or you start swearing at it and the voice recognition kicks in.

  • First of all this is speculative gibberish. It may be 2 years, and it may be 20.

    Secondly, I can just see a status console showing "User status: Bored" 95% of the time.

    Stop trying to build clippy for computer games.

    • yes because keeping on pushing out the same shit and never trying anything new even at the risk of being called "gimmicky" is the way to innovation! Really!

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by syousef ( 465911 )

        yes because keeping on pushing out the same shit and never trying anything new even at the risk of being called "gimmicky" is the way to innovation! Really!

        There is a difference between a gimmick and an innovation. Reading the emotion of a player just for the sake of it is definitely a gimmick. Find something you can actually use this for, besides deciding when a player is easiest to target with ads, and we might have a conversation. Until then this is not innovative at all - a first person shooter is not innovative because it can tell you're stressed or annoyed or bored if it does nothing interesting with the info...and I can't think of much it could do - per

        • so just because you don't know what it's useful for immediately means that it's just a gimmick?

          Talk about argument from ignorance.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by syousef ( 465911 )

            so just because you don't know what it's useful for immediately means that it's just a gimmick?

            Talk about argument from ignorance.

            In itself a computer game reading emotions is not useful. If it has a purpose, that purpose is the innovation. Presenting the emotion reading without presenting a decent application is very much a gimmick.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by bws111 ( 1216812 )

          Innovate: to introduce new methods, devices, etc. Any ability to detect emotions would by definition be innovative, because it would be new.

          As for what to do with the sensed emotions - well that opens up a whole world of possibilities. FPS games are a perfect example. If you sense that your enemy is scared you would certainly use different tactics (exploit the fear, back them into a corner) than if your enemy is just plain crazy with anger (go into defensive mode). That would increase the realism, not d

    • I believe Hocking is somewhat wrong. Although judgment of visual, external, expressions can give clues to internal states, emotions work a bit like this: 1) a person has various goals. As he progresses through the present world-state, he experiences success or failure, or partial success or partial failure of progress towards goals. 2) this progress is cognitively monitored by parts of the brain, and a metric (an 'emotion type and intensity value') is mapped and matched to the goal progress. 3) other factor

    • There are already a few "zen"-like games which work via biometrics -- you're supposed to calm down (or get really excited) to cause certain things to happen in-game.

      But really, I don't see the point in an actual game. What effect would my emotions have on gameplay? Do I really want them to have an effect? I can only think of two games I've played recently where the player could really effect their character's emotional state:

      Penumbra. In this series, if I'm hiding and I look directly at a monster, my charac

  • And unicorns will pilot jet fighters. (Score:4, Insightful)

    by RobinEggs ( 1453925 ) on Wednesday August 24, 2011 @01:49AM (#37187998)
    Don't forget that ten years is the standard length of time for bullshit PR spin.

    Want to make a bold claim with no evidence whatsoever? No problem! Just prophecy that it will happen "in ten years" and you'll enjoy the infinite respect and worship afforded to the likes of St. Peter, Confucious, and Warren Buffet.

    Worried about being wrong? Again, no problem! When the ten year mark rolls around you'll have a wealth of available options for deflecting the shame. Your best hope is that you'll be dead by then. If by some grave misfortune you are still alive, you'll still have an average of 2.7 presidential administrations (adjusting for the assassination coefficient), dozens of religious leaders, and countless others to blame for derailing the path to paradise in the prior decade!

    Bet on ten years and no one can ever prove you wrong! Guaranteed or your money back! Thank you for shopping Ronco, operators are standing by!

  • Emotion = ({Bored},{ Slightly aroused});

    • Sony is working on perfecting their emotion-sensing technology right now; they're currently working on anger. Unfortunately, they have hit a roadblock, as studies indicate people are angry at Sony all the time.

  • possible now (Score:3)

    by Lehk228 ( 705449 ) on Wednesday August 24, 2011 @02:02AM (#37188076) Journal
    if you want to do something like that now all you need to do is record and analyze input patterns from regular controllers, redundant or excessively long button presses and repeated attempts at disallowed actions, significantly lower than average (for a particular player) numbers of actions taken in a minute (not counting walking around) and significantly worse than normal reaction times would indicate boredom or lack of attention Redundant button presses along with high actions per minute would indicate excitement.

    all without creepy "computer is watching you" shit

  • So since the 3D thing is an abject failure Sony's got something else lined up to sell us all new proprietary hardware with.

    Honestly, I don't doubt reading basic emotions could be possible in 10 years, which is an eternity - we already can do it fairly well with crude emotions (fear is easy to recognize!). What I really worry about is what the people who brought you Playstation Home might try to do with it. Who are so tone deaf they don't realize that continually neutering the console they sold you for $600

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by gl4ss ( 559668 )

      I think they're just talking about more sophisticated gestures when they're talking about emotion sensing - it's hard enough with humans, harder with hardened actors and what's more important guessing the reason behind the emotions is even harder.

      or will the machine do mind reading too and thought control detection?

  • I can't imagine there being a wide range of emotions that can be expressed while playing something made by Sony (hate and super-hate come to mind). Sony may very well be right about the creation of such a feature but I doubt they'll be the ones implementing or taking advantage of it to the fullest.

  • So does this mean games could get easier when I'm about to throw the controller at the wall? because that seems counter productive to Sony, who makes money when I have to go buy a new controller.

  • The fun will be in inducing subtle variations in your own emotions so as not to be perceptible to those around you and yet force the interpreting code down long improbable paths, and see if the programmers covered every contingency.

  • "Reading player emotions [and sending all the data straight to Sony's marketing department and anyone else willing to pay] will be a key feature"

  • Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • I always heard chinese and japanese people smile when they are embarrassed.

    About the "ten-years" : i once had a book, when i was a young boy, about year 2000. It was for kids, ok. But i remember it told a lot about things that never happens. (Like living on the moon). Things have changed in a so impredictable way !

    I read that on ./ : there is no future in time travel...

    • Yeah, there's already stuff out there that can read emotions. They let users customize commands, so basically, if you have, say, 22 different emotions, thoughts, and expressions you can use, it will let you assign each one to a command of your choice. It basically turns each expression into a button, which you have to activate to give the command - it's not like it can tell what you're actually thinking.

  • I read about a game you could buy at the gadget shop that measures how stressed out you are. The purpose, of course, is to be less stressed out than your opponent. The catch: loser gets an electric shock!

  • I bet they'll call it the "Emotion Engine".

    Oh wait, can't do that, marketing already took that one [wikipedia.org].

  • This has already been done, and stuff like this has been out for a few years already. The Emotiv EPOC EEG headset has games on it that can be controlled with emotion and thought. FYI, Spirit Mountain: http://www.emotiv.com/store/apps/applications/117/602 [emotiv.com] It never caught on as well as the developers hoped though.

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