Sony Patent Would Put NFC Payments on Your PlayStation Controller

tekbog · x · 2026-09-24

Sony has published a patent for "video game controller-driven information transfer," adding NFC to PlayStation controllers so users could tap a phone or credit card on the controller to pay, or easily import their PlayStation account to a new console—most plausibly the PlayStation 6.

Patents don't guarantee shipped features, but similar tap-to-pair functionality is standard on phones. Security is the big open question: account import via tap would make it trivial to steal accounts by grabbing someone's phone. Apple solves this on new iPhones with a camera-scanned cloud pattern; a controller has no camera, so Sony would need a simpler approach. Sony and Microsoft have both had a run of patent filings this week.

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