Who doesn't love a good video game cartridge? You scratch a disc, and you've probably screwed it for good. Scratch a cartridge, and you're golden. If a disc stops working and you blow on it, people will think you're a weirdo. Blow into a cartridge on the other hand, and people will acknowledge you as the galaxy-brained renaissance man you so clearly are.
I love cartridges, if I haven't already made that clear. Don't judge me. We all have our quirks. With that in mind, I happen to see it as good news that Sony has registered a patent for a nice thicc cartridge of its very own. According to a new report from LetsGoDigital, the company filed the cartridge with the same Brazilian patent office as the June 2019 patent for the PS5 Dev Kit.
The new Sony cartridge seems to be the work of Yujin Morisawa. Morisawa has been with Sony for 15-years, and also designed various cosmetics, the PS5 dev kit, and Sony's Xperia Agent robot butler.
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It's unclear what this strange new product could actually be for, but I feel confident in saying that it won't be for the PS5. As much as it pains me to admit it, firm fan of cartridges that I am, I just don't see Sony ditching discs for a cartridge-based next-generation console.
We've never seen a PlayStation model use a cartridge, so why would Sony start now? Also, you know, Sony already confirmed that its next-gen hardware would feature a 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray disc-drive a few months back, so that's another strike against cartridges. I've used the world cartridge a lot in this article. Cartridge.
Sony's handheld PlayStation Vita made use of smaller cartridges, of course. I guess there's a chance that the new patent could be indicative of a new handheld on the horizon from Sony, but I'm still entirely convinced that's the case either. Sony famously screwed the pooch with the Vita, after all, but could the success of the Nintendo Switch have caused the company to reconsider?
There's also a chance that Sony could be using cartridges for the PS5, not for booting up games, but as swappable solid state drives (SSD) that allow customers to quickly and easily upgrade their storage capacity.
It's impossible to say at this stage, but what I do know is that just because a company has filed a patent for a product doesn't necessarily mean that product will see the light of day.
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I mean, did you ever see that ridiculous patent Nintendo filed years ago for something called a Vitrtual Boy? It was this dumb-looking headset that was supposed to be a handheld VR device. Can you imagine if they'd gone ahead and made that? It would have been a flop. Thank goodness we dodged that bullet.
Featured Image Credit: SonyTopics: PS5, PlayStation