- Sony recently acquired the 3D animation company Beyond Sports for approximately an undisclosed amount. $70 million.
- Beyond Sports specializes in creating 3D animation from real-world data.
- Conglomerate already has Hawk-Eye Innovations and PulseLive in their kitty.
Sony, the entertainment and technology giant, is all set to go all in into the metaverse technology especially focused on sports. In the process, the conglomerate already acquired Hawk-Eye Innovations in 2011, the expert in tracking the pinpoint location of the ball in any game. And now they did the acquisition of 3D animation company Beyond sports for the non-disclosed amount of approximately $70 million.
Now, these two companies and their breakthrough technologies in their kitty can offer a fully immersive metaverse experience of sports matches, taking the viewing experience to a whole new level.
Beyond Sports is said to have the technology to transform real information from sports matches into a metaverse representation. While Hawk-Eye Innovations has the tech to pinpoint ball locations in sports like football, baseball, basketball and tennis, to name a few, they have collaborated with NFL (National Football League) and NHL (National Hockey league) in the past.
Now, suppose they skillfully and carefully combine these two technologies. In that case, Sony could theoretically create a digital and actual representation of a field or a court featuring very realistic players and ball movements of the game.
Now considering the technology is ready, the question arises regarding its distribution; PulseLive, another company owned by Sony, acquired in 2011 along with Hawk-Eye, can fill the said distribution gap. Bringing the experience to the audience. PulseLive is a company that operates several websites for sports organizations and teams; the websites can now be used to include the enhanced metaverse experience. This will also create an added revenue by further popularizing the sports, as die-hard sports fans will pay huge amounts to have one of a kind viewing experience of their beloved sport.
Sony is also planning to offer metaverse matches through its already famous PlayStation consoles, using them as distribution devices. As per speculations, the company is already developing Virtual Reality (VR) goggles exclusively for its console PS 5 and above. It will be called PlayStation VR2 and is confirmed to hit the market in February 2023. These goggles can then be used for an immersive and surreal experience of the metaverse.
Sony is already believed to have had fair exposure to the metaverse and NFTs before, and they have filed many patents to use NFTs to track the ownership of in-game assets such as skins, guns, scopes, vehicles and many more.
Kenichiro Yoshida, CEO of Sony, said that Sony’s “First priority is to create a metaverse around entertainment.”
Metaverse is said to be the future of technology, and how Sony is meticulously planning its step in the arena is applause-worthy and will surely bring great innovations and end products for the people to enjoy and appreciate the grand scale of technology.