Sony Wants to Make It Easier for You to Pay by Adding Credit Card Processing to Its Controllers

A recently discovered patent filed by Sony shows that the console manufacturer may be looking into ways for customers to pay using their credit cards with its controllers. Well, parents, consider this your heads-up on a potential nightmare if you don’t have things locked down or safely hidden away. According to a new patent, Sony could be working on a controller that supports tap-and-pay functionality for both chip-supported credit cards and phones. As spotted by Dexerto (via Eureka), The patent mentions the ability to scan information from a phone or other device but also receive data transmitted from a credit card or gift card to the controller for makng in-app purchases.

The workflow, as described in the patent document “Video game controller-driven information transfer”, is as follows: A user is logged into their console, and their respective accounts and the controller is connected to the console via wired, Bluetooth, or other wireless solution. Then payment information is transmitted or scanned from the credit/gift card or electronic device to the controller for in-app purchases or game credits, whereby the console confirms purchases via its GUI, which can also include remaining gift card balances

There’s no denying the convenience of simply holding a card or phone next to a controller to complete payment processing, and what could possibly go wrong with that? After all, how many folks have been held back from making a poor purchasing decision because they were too incapacitated to enter their credit card data (and you thought drunk dialing was a problem)? On the other hand, another warning to parents: what risk is there if junior has access to your phone and decides to load up on packs for their favorite game? On the plus side, with responsibility pushed to the side, it could be really convenient in the moment to either purchase a game or some newly added DLC just by tapping or having your phone handy. If anything, it’s a wonder that a certain Cupertino company, or Microsoft and Nintendo, haven’t already managed to offer this technology to gamers. However, let’s hope that Sony and whoever else begins rolling out these features have their end of security protocols worked out because it could go south real quick if they don’t.

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