This Sh*t Is Bananas! PlayStation Patents Fruit Peripheral

Sony rakes in obscene sums of cash from its range of PlayStation peripherals, but in a new patent, the company has acknowledged that expensive hardware could be considered a barrier to people enjoying its games. While a DualSense pad currently retails for £59.99/$69.99, the platform holder has proposed an alternative: groceries like bananas, which could theoretically be used as a cheap alternative to traditional pads.

The documentation explains: “While peripherals such as [controllers, head-mounted displays, motion controllers, and steering wheels] can enrich a player’s video game experience, the technical complexity (and therefore cost) associated with such devices can often act as a barrier to entry in terms of players accessing such equipment.”

It continues that even those who own multiple peripherals need to manage them to ensure they’re properly charged. “It would be desirable if a user could use an inexpensive, simple, and non-electronic device as a video game peripheral,” the abstract concludes. It proposes a solution whereby fruit could be used as makeshift weapons, or plates could be repurposed as replacement steering wheels.

So how does the Japanese giant envisage all this working? Well, the idea is that you’d scan your everyday object using a camera, and that would then be tracked by your console. It even adds that augmented reality could be used to overlay buttons on objects, so you could – in theory – have traditional PlayStation inputs on an orange.

Of course, it’s worth stressing that not all patents become real products, and while we appreciate the intent here – well, it’s never going to come to, ahem, fruition, is it? This is the same company that prevents you from using your existing DualShock 4s to play local multiplayer games on the PS5 – we’re sure it’d rather you shell out on a DualSense than a pineapple.