IGN – Both Sony and Microsoft have had a series of patents come out in the last week or so, and one of them would potentially bring NFC payments to the PlayStation 6.
Sony filed a patent called “video game controller-driven information transfer,” which describes a controller with NFC capabilities that would let you tap your phone or your credit card to your controller to send information to your console. The most obvious use for this would be for payment, but it would also let you more easily import your PlayStation account to a new console.
It’s already so god damn easy to buy video games nowadays. It’s basically what got me back into gaming. I bought the PS5 when College Football 25 came out. It had been years since I had a new system. It was the only game I cared to play. So I played that a good amount until I was tired of it. But once I was done, I didn’t necessarily have the urge to play anything else. Then months later I was sitting at home bored on a weekend, my wife was out of town, and I finally had the realization, “Wait a damn minute… I can just buy and play any PS5 game in the world right now. And I don’t even have to leave my couch.”
Now all I want to do is play FC27 every weekend, and I’m not sure I would have gotten to this point had I needed to make a trip to GameStop to buy it.
To be honest, I don’t know why the hell I would need a controller that acts as a credit card terminal. My information is already saved on the system. There’s already a big ol’ PURCHASE button on every screen. If anything, having to walk to my bedroom to fetch my wallet is just adding an additional hurdle my lazy ass would have to overcome buy something (if for some reason I wanted to use the credit card I have on my phone).
It does present kids with an interesting opportunity to go for the Hail Mary lie of – “I don’t know what happened. I must have set my controller down by your wallet.”
I also suppose it’s quicker to steal your parents credit card and tap it on your controller than it is to type in all the information. Not that it’s prevented kids from spending their parents money in the past.
Realistically, it’s all the people who haven’t yet taken the 5 minutes to enter their credit card into their system who are in danger. I’m sure there are a good number of people who refuse to save their credit card info onto their Playstation. Either to keep themselves from making impulse purchases, or because they don’t trust Sony with their info. But if every new Playstation controller comes with a tap-to-pay option… well tapping a card is easier than using an on-screen keyboard to type in 16-digits, an expiration date, and a CV.
So tough cookies to these hypothetical people with poor impulse control who’ve been keeping their reckless spending at bay by not saving credit card numbers to their system. Because soon your controller may be it’s own terminal. In the end it’s just another way to purchase something. The more ways to buy, the more purchases people will make. I’m sure there’s data that backs that up somewhere.
