Sony patent could let you tap a phone or credit card on your PlayStation controller to buy games
Somebody at Sony wants my phone talking to my controller. A patent application Sony Interactive Entertainment just made public in the US has a DualSense picking up payment details from a phone you hold near it and passing them along to the console. No more pecking out card numbers with a thumbstick.
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The internet heard “credit card” and lost its mind. Fair enough, I guess, since the filing does say a card could work. I went through the claims line by line, though, and Sony’s lawyers barely seem to care about plastic.
Your phone does the work: DualSense payment patent
Sony PlayStation DualSense Wireless Controller – Grand Theft Auto VI Black Limited Edition – For PS5, PC, Mac & Mobile
Buried inside Sony’s March 2025 filing, published September 17, 2026, is a pretty strange shopping setup. The patent is officially called “Video Game Controller-Driven Information Transfer.” One screen even asks, “Is desired controller rumbling?” That would be your confirmation that you have the right DualSense in hand. Your phone handles the approval, while the controller passes the payment information to the PS5.
Plastic shows up once. One example paragraph has a gift card popping up on screen with its balance, and a passing line says a credit card works too. Count the cards in the 20 claims and you get zero. Those claims are what Sony gets to protect, and they only ever say “electronic device,” patent-speak for your phone.
Sofa test: iPhone owners
My iPhone is usually somewhere on the sofa with me when I’m playing Call of Duty. So if it could approve a PS5 game without making me get up, I’d use it. The kid test is where I’d get nervous. Leave a wallet on the coffee table and hand someone a DualSense that can trigger a purchase, and I’m turning on a PIN immediately.
Checkout at the expo, and an excuse I can’t buy
Imagine walking away from an expo demo with the game already sitting in your PS5 library. That’s the useful part of Sony’s idea. Tap the phone against the DualSense and deal with the rest later. The patent’s justification is less convincing to me. Sony says making the console manage the phone, controller, and QR code could slow it down or overheat. If a PS5 can spend hours rendering a giant game world, I’m not convinced a checkout screen is going to break its back.
Don’t hold your breath for a PS6 pad
The drawings show a plain PS5 and DualSense. Sony files odd ideas constantly (buttons that stiffen as you press them, ads on loading screens) and ships almost none of them. Next to Microsoft‘s patent for ads after boss fights, a tap-to-pay pad looks downright polite.
