A Sony patent has been discovered which describes a universal gaming controller…with a twist! The patent is for an LCD, touch-screen based controller for multiple game consoles. The controller would feature at least one touch-screen which would display the controller key layout for a selected gaming system. The patent, which you can view in detail here, has a figure showing a selection box with labels for PlayStation, Nintendo and Xbox.

Presumably, the user would just select the current system he or she is using and that system’s controller layout would be displayed on the screen. This is a pretty neat idea, but would it really work that well? I get the feeling I’d miss the real buttons. Also, how would analog sticks be handled? Perhaps some day we’ll find out.