Sony's 'universal' rewind button is probably just a glorified video capture feature

Update November 8, 2024: Closer inspection of Sony's patent application suggests that the rewind button's functionality may be limited to viewing recorded gameplay as opposed to actually going back and fully replaying sections of the game.

There are passages of the patent text that seem to imply "replaying" rather than just viewing recordings. But on balance, the rewind button looks likely to just be a glorified video capture feature.

As per the patent filing, "during live game play of a video game, a player may wish to review recently played portions the game play. For example, the player may have been given some important information to perform a quest, such as when a non-player character (NPC) provides details on capturing an object (e.g. weapon) with additional instructions to bring that object to a particular location. At some point during the live game play, the player may have forgotten portions of or all of the information, and may wish to revisit their recent game play. This may occur when the player decides to perform the quest later, and has forgotten certain details of the quest when the player ultimately tries to complete the quest."

That would likely make it easier to implement and compatible across most games, where an actual universal replay feature would be much more challenging to achieve.

Original story November 6, 2024: A new patent application from Sony for a dedicated rewind button for games consoles has been spotted by Tech4Gamers (via Tom's Hardware). It's not clear when or on what console or controller the new feature may appear or even if the patent will be awarded. At taken at face value, it promises to fix all your worst gaming failures.

Well, it could for single player gaming. Sony's patent says, "the user is able to enter the rewind mode from the live game play using one or more controller inputs to view recent game play (e.g. rewinding, fast-forwarding, playing, etc.) and returning to live game play afterwards."

The patent also says, "advantages of the methods and systems configured to implement a system implemented rewind mode to revisit recent game play that is accessible via a universal button on a game controller during live game play include a seamless experience in replaying the recent game play."

This "universal" notion is repeated numerous times throughout the patent, implying that the button is designed to work with all games. Of course, it can't actually be all games. You won't be able to rewind a multiplayer online shooter for fairly obvious reasons.

The question is, will you be able to rewind all single-player games? That certainly seems to be the implication. And if you can, how do you feel about that? For some games, it could be a godsend.

Equally, a certain kind of gaming purist might be offended by the easy or even lazy opportunities such a feature would provide. For sure, it would pull the rug out from under any jeopardy you might otherwise experience.

Where once you might have spent 20 minutes carefully plotting a treacherous route between specific and limited way points that allowed you to save progress, a universal rewind button would mean that you could make any kind of error at literally any moment, and all without consequences.

Of course, should such a feature be implemented, you wouldn't have to use it. But for many, its mere existence and the knowledge that follows, in other words the knowledge that rewinding at any moment is possible, could undermine certain aspects of the experience.

Still, it's certainly possible that support for the button could be implemented on a per-game basis, leaving all these weighty decisions to the philosophical preferences of individual game developers.

Speaking of which some games already implement various spins on the notion of a rewind button or feature, including Forza Horizon 5 or perhaps more pertinently the 2003 cross-platform console game Prince of Persia: Sands of Time, for which the time reversal feature was an integral element of gameplay. So, the basic idea isn't novel.

Actually, that lack of thorough novelty rather begs the question of how, well, patentable this kind of feature is. For now, our understanding of the technology is that it is in "patent pending" status. The patent app has been submitted and published, but it has yet to be granted.

There's also no indication if, when or how the rewind button might be implemented. For instance, maybe it will be tied to a new future console. Or perhaps Sony will add it to a controller for an existing console. Ironically for a technology that all about rolling back time, that's all in the future.