Prakash Kerai & Joe Stephenson outline Sony’s potential new approach to virtual asset transfer, & the legal hurdles which could stand in the way
- Sony’s ground-breaking patent application hints at using NFTs to transfer virtual assets between games and consoles, potentially revolutionising the gaming industry.
- The move signifies a shift in the gaming industry’s conservative approach to NFTs and opens doors for interoperability with other platforms beyond its own ecosystem.
- However, legal hurdles including anti-money laundering, financial regulation, data protection, and intellectual property rights must be navigated for a successful implementation.
Sony Interactive Entertainment recently made headlines with the publication of an international patent application to make non-fungible tokens (NFTs) transferable between games and consoles.
Despite an initial 2021 popularity boom, 2022 saw a dramatic decline in the trading volumes of NFTs. While the downturn has been touted by some commentators as having ‘fallen off a cliff’, Sony’s patent application may be seen as indicative of a diversification of use-cases for NFTs. Thus far, the gaming industry has adopted a conservative approach to NFTs, having generally
