Sony Interactive Japan has secured a patent for what appears to be an external storage cartridge for the PlayStation 5.
As first reported by PSU last week, a leak on website letsgodigital revealed that Sony Interactive Entertainment had filed a patent with the Brazilian patent office at the end of June, which was approved and published on November 5, 2019.
According to letsgodigital, the application is categorized internationally as Class 14.99, which bears the description of “miscellaneous.” However, in Japan, this classification is described as “electronic game accessories.”
The leak on letsgodigital also states that Yujin Morisawa is the inventor of this project. Morisawa is the senior art director of Sony Interactive Entertainment, and is responsible for all products associated with the PlayStation brand.
At first it was believed that this patent was for an SSD device that could be used as additional storage for the PS4. However, the day after the first leak, PSU reported that the patent for the device had been updated, and that it contained a pin layout of twelve pins, making it unsuitable for a SATA connection. This has led to speculation that the filed patent is, indeed, an external storage device for the PlayStation 5.
Today, PSU reports that the original Japanese patent for the device has again received an update, in the form of some descriptive text which divulges the reason for the device’s existence. Originally in Japanese, this text has been translated to: “This is a recording medium which can record various data, such as a character, an image, an animation, a sound and a program. By loading the opening provided by the game console with the tip end part by which a variety of pins of this cartridge were provided, the various data recorded on this cartridge can be read.”
This would, indeed, seem to suggest that this cartridge will be used as an external storage device, perhaps to hold more of those enormous HD games that will ship for the PS5, as its expected internal storage at ship likely won’t be adequate for those with a sizeable library.
Curious readers can check out the following image, which is a mock-up render from letsgodigital, based on the filed patent sketches, that might show what this storage device will look like.
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