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During the development of the PlayStation 4's DualShock 4 controller, Sony tested a version of a controller that included biofeedback sensors to detect how stressed the player was, based on how much his or her hand was sweating. That's right; the same technology that's used in polygraphs could have been an integral part of the PS4.
But in an interview with Stuff, Sony's lead architect Mark Cerny said the company nixed those plans:
We had a long research project where we looked at pretty much any idea we could think of. Would it help to measure the galvanic response of the skin? We tried out a tremendous number of things—and then we went to the game teams to ask them what they thought they could use from the controller.
The final version of the DualShock 4 controller, of course, features a touchpad, light bar, and improved triggers and joysticks. Body-monitoring features are not exactly a new thing, though. Nintendo's had heart-rate monitoring since as far back as 1998, and the Wii has an optional, little-used vitality sensor.
As intriguing as it sounds to have a game that reacts to your precise level of stress, blasting that much data to Sony's insecure servers makes that all a little scary. Additionally, it might add a weird layer to the user experience.
And even though the biofeedback sensors didn't make the cut, it doesn't mean we won't hear about them again. Sony has patents for such technology, so don't count it out entirely—we might see it in future generations of controllers.
