I'm 100% certain I've seen this in a game ages ago, but without the dumb AI part.

I wonder if the much more sensible strategy of just making the ghost a recording of a person beating it, instead of shoehorning in AI, would infringe on this patent.

I love patent illustrations.

Isn't this a Nintendo thing from like the 2000s? Why would you even need to use AI when you could just use a recording of one of your testers doing it or (crazy thought) just using a "skip this" button? This seems like a dumb way to shoe-horn AI into something that doesn't make sense.

I feel like they do not understand why people play games.

Also this thing is gonna get exploited for a cheat bot tout suite

So ... they patented NPCs?

How can they patent it? I've seen something very similar more than 20 years ago. AI is a keyword here? Like you can patent everything as long as it's AI?

Player: "Uh, hey... wouldn't beating this section be easier if you didn't jump directly into the lava pit?"

AI Ghost: "LOL, you're right!! 😂😅🤦🏼‍♂️🤦🏼‍♂️🤦🏼‍♂️🤦🏼‍♂️ I'll try to incorporate your feed back into future attempts to complete this section!"

If I need help I will look up a video or a guide. I dont need a fucking AI.

Good, now nobody else can implement this idiotic system and I will continue to just not buy Sony games.

Why even play the game then!?

Didn’t Nintendo already do this? Seems like an invalid patent.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/wii/960544-new-super-mario-bros-wii/answers/130039-super-guide

Let me guess, you have to pay a monthly subscription fee for this and if you want the free tier, it would just require you to play all games with an internet connection to ensure you aren't doing something you shouldn't and collecting your juicy data in the meantime. This fucking timeline is almost like the fallout timeline

Didn't they have 'drivatars' in that racing game years ago at this point? An AI imitation of a player should not be patentable.

why not just have an AI play the whole game for you? sounds great /s

Yet another reason to avoid Sony.

Well that’s much easier than just designing a good game

God forbid someone having to actually figure something out on their own…that’s practically abuse

Uggghhh. Sony was already the worst with the annoying fucking nagging if the player takes a micro-second to look at anything that isn't a button to the next level/mission/etc. "I think this panel is part of a puzzle!" "Yeah, I fucking know that already. I'm just taking a second to look at the other 99% of the game you assholes spent years designing. Shut up!"

You can't patent game mechanics, afaik

I wonder if in the future this sort of functionality would become common place.

I could actually see this being useful in some complex strategy / business sims for querying more convoluted or unintuitive gameplay mechanic. But it would have been done well, more of a dynamic Wiki query tool powered by a local LLM than Sony's approach.