Sony’s New Patent Could Enable Tap-to-Pay With PlayStation Controllers

September 25, 2026Competitive Strategies, E-Commerce, Mobile Commerce, Near-Field Communication (NFC), Transaction Processing

Near-field communication technology that has found its way into almost every credit and debit card could also be used to enable video gamers to pay for new games and movies with a tap of the card against a Sony PlayStation controller, according to a recent patent by the electronics giant.

The patent, published Sept. 17, outlines how a smart phone also could be used to tap. Many consumers use mobile wallets to store payment card information. The patent, which does not guarantee such a system will emerge, does not apply to the current generation of Sony Interactive Entertainment Inc.’s PlayStation machines because they do not have NFC chips. In addition to payment for digital goods, the patent also could apply to logging into the video-game consoles.

Sony says it has sold more than 95 million PlayStation 5 consoles and has 125 million monthly active users as of June 30. More than 1.7 billion units of software have been sold across PlayStation 4 and 5, too.

Tap-to-pay technology emerged as smart phones and consumer payment cards each were built with NFC chips. This short-range wireless transmission technology enabled sensitive data to be passed between devices in a more secure way than prior technology permitted.

It found a calling within payments in softPOS, which enables a consumer NFC-equipped device to be used as a payment terminal because of the use of encrypted software on it. The technology got a boost when the PCI Security Standards Council released its unified softPOS standard in 2022, though an earlier iteration of it was announced in 2019.

SoftPOS enables consumers to tap their credit or debit cards against a merchant’s mobile device and have the same experience and security as they would tapping the card against a dedicated POS terminal on a countertop.