Sony could be planning a PlayStation mobile controller, patent suggests

Sony Interactive Entertainment has patented what appears to be a PlayStation controller designed for mobile gaming.

The patent, which was published this week by SIE’s Japanese division, describes a system for playing games on a device coupled with two controller grips.

The controller, which resembles PS4’s DualShock 4 rather than PS5’s newer DualSense, is described as “a left side grip portion and a right side grip portion gripped by the left and right hands of the user”.

According to the patent, the included drawings of the device omit “a shaft portion that can be tilted by the user, and detect the tilting direction and tilting amount of the shaft portion.”

If such a device comes to fruition, it could be used in conjunction with a smart phone to play PlayStation games via Remote Play or via the cloud, similar to how third-party controller grips can currently be used to play streamed Xbox games.

PlayStation controllers are already compatible with mobile devices via Bluetooth.

The patent arrives amid a fresh push into mobile gaming by the PlayStation maker.

In October SIE appointed former Apple Arcade content boss Nicola Sebastiani to lead the company’s mobile operations, following job ads that stated it was opening a new business unit to adapt its “most popular franchises” for mobile.

The following month, PlayStation boss Jim Ryan confirmed the platform holder was planning to bring some of its “iconic IP” to mobile during its current business year ending in March 2022.

“We have been thinking about how players enjoy our content and have had some early success with experimenting with mobile games and apps to provide more choice to gamers,” he said. “Mobile is just one of the areas we are exploring to reach millions of gamers beyond our platforms.

“PlayStation has a huge catalogue of diverse first-party IP that can transition to smartphone gaming and complement our AAA games or live service games. We are exploring the mobile market with some wonderful PlayStation franchises so please stay tuned.”

Recently it was confirmed that classic PlayStation racing franchise WipEout is returning in the form of a new mobile game.

Set for release on iOS and Android devices in early 2022, WipEout Rush is a card-based racer featuring a single-player campaign and 60 ships from the original games.