• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

Sony Patent Application - Trophies in past-gen trophy-less titles

Sony seems to be exploring different ways/reasons to award trophies to users, even for games that don't natively support them.

To be more specific, in this patent application they talk about awarding trophies using disk access "triggers".

You can get a general idea of how it works below.

United States Patent Application 2013007355

Title: METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR AWARDING TROPHIES
Published: 03/21/2013
Filed: 09/19/2012

Abstract:
A method and apparatus for adding trophy support games that do not have trophies without modifying the original game. The method and apparatus are used to detect particular disk access, use the detected disk access as potential trophy triggers in games, and recognize the triggers while a game is played. Trophies are awarded based on the triggers, and the awarded trophies are stored.

untitledz3j07.png


untitled2j9jkt.png


Headed to PS4?


lOck/mOck IF Old
 

V_Ben

Banned
Ok, so that would be a pretty sweet way to let people get Trophies from PS1 and PS2 classics.

Also it woud let Insomniac patch Resistance 1 with trophies. Bwahaha.
 

edgefusion

Member
This is just a patent. It means next to nothing. Companies file patents for all manner of things near constantly. It's a cool idea but that's all it is, an idea.
 
If FF12 were ever given trophies I'm pretty sure I would develop a blood clot in both of my legs for never standing up.
 

sono

Member
I expect that PS4 will have trophies for all new games as standard it was only initial PS3 games that didnt have them, it was added as PS3 feature after launch. So I would assume its for PS3 games.

MGS4 trophies incoming ?(I wish)

However it seems there are issues with this alternative approach. e.g for a digital download you can not rely on a prior analysis of the hard disk access because the game binaries will stored in different places on the hard disk for each user ... and also even for bluray games the games are subsequently patched with patches stored on the hard drive - meaning a given bluray disk location may not even be accessed after patching ?. So this seems like a lot of work for someone to maintain when you could just patch the game!

I am all for trophies though, I like them mainly for a permanent memory of progress of games long finished.
 

Ridley327

Member
I expect that PS4 will have trophies for all new games as standard it was only initial PS3 games that didnt have them, it was added as PS3 feature after launch. So I would assume its for PS3 games.

MGS4 trophies incoming ?(I wish)

However it seems there issues with this alternative approach. e.g for a digital download you can analyze the hard disk access because the game binaries will stored in different places for each user, and also even for blurays the games are patched meaning a given disk location may not be accessed after patching ?.

I am all for trophies though, I like them mainly for a permanent memory of progress of games long finished.

I have some good news for you!
 

Toki767

Member
I wonder if we'd just end up getting generic trophy icons. I don't want those. Part of the fun of getting trophies is seeing the icon/artwork associated with them.
 

Orca

Member
Apparently if they want to push new sales, they should lock out trophies/achievements from being earned on used ones.
 
This is just a patent. It means next to nothing. Companies file patents for all manner of things near constantly. It's a cool idea but that's all it is, an idea.

Browsing patents (and applications) imo is the easiest way, for the average joe (like me), to get into the minds of companies and their research teams.

It doesn't matter if it will never materialize.

Just the fact that they've looked into it and we have -free- access to it, is cool enough for me.
 
I wonder if we'd just end up getting generic trophy icons. I don't want those. Part of the fun of getting trophies is seeing the icon/artwork associated with them.
Unless youre playing a god of war game. Generic logo for all icons.
Edit:didnt mean to double post.
 

androvsky

Member
I wonder if we'd just end up getting generic trophy icons. I don't want those.

This method will take a lot of work for each game to set up the triggers, probably a lot more work than putting trophies in a regular game with source access. I'd only expect this to only happen on a few chosen games; if they're going through the trouble to identify disk access patterns, they're probably going to put in unique trophy art.
 

GraveRobberX

Platinum Trophy: Learned to Shit While Upright Again.
Me reading:
5i9VD5t.gif


My mind racing, getting ready:
0ggnTY8.gif


Outcome:
VzGqgPe.jpg


Bring it on, My Beard and Body has been Ready!
 

Andrefpvs

Member
You know, this thread would have a lot more views if the title mentioned "possible trophy support for old titles." I only found it because I was looking for it :p

But yeah, reading through their patent, it can be done by analysing patterns (I had assumed RAM monitoring, but they appear to be developing their own tech) and assigning a title ID to a unique set of patterns and trophy IDs to other patterns after the title has been identified.


MGS4 trophies incoming ?(I wish)

lol
 
You know, this thread would have a lot more views if the title mentioned "possible trophy support for old titles." I only found it because I was looking for it :p

You are right. Title is kinda stupid.

I changed it (still weird imo) but obviously that doesn't change the thread..emm..title.

Maybe a mod can jump in.

Anyways EN not my 1st language - titles can get tricky at times :p
 
Me reading:
5i9VD5t.gif


My mind racing, getting ready:
0ggnTY8.gif


Outcome:
VzGqgPe.jpg


Bring it on, My Beard and Body has been Ready!

Dude I'm dying over here.

Hopefully this means they can finally fix the mistakes that lots of lazy devs made with pre-mandatory trophies :\ I know a lot of people don't care about them but it's another selling point for a game if it has fun trophies/achievements, in my opinion. Pre-mandatory trophies lots of games didn't even get them, because of budgeting or whatever.
 

BibiMaghoo

Member
There are times Sony, when doing nothing with a patent is cool for everyone.

This is not one of those times.

Make it happen.
 

kaching

"GAF's biggest wanker"
This seems like it might be as much work to analyze disk access for "trophy worthy" patterns as it would be to just patch the actual game. But I guess it would be good for those games that simply can't be patched like PS1/PS2 on-disc games.
 
This is just a patent. It means next to nothing. Companies file patents for all manner of things near constantly. It's a cool idea but that's all it is, an idea.

Everything begins with an idea. At least this shows that they are looking into ways of getting trophies onto older games.
 
Top Bottom