Smell your station?

Sony revealed a new gaming system that could allow the users to smell their surroundings and environment within the games.  The proprietors of the PlayStation system unveiled its Future Immersive Entertainment Concept at the tech showcase CES 2025 and have followed this up with a trailer for the kit.

However, this is a large, kit so PlayStation fans will have to contain themselves for the moment, it may be years before you can smell the aromas of your favourite titles.

The trailer sees gamers playing through acclaimed developer Naughty Dog’s classic title ‘The Last Of Us’ with the additions of both new dialogue and the smells to create what Sony have described as “completely new experience”.

The visuals of players traversing through a zombie infested wasteland, inhaling the decay makes you wonder what other games would actually be made more enjoyable by being able to be smelled?

One game I’d love to be able to smell, however is Minecraft, a simple answer, but I get the feeling the roaming biomes, the flowers, the life within the sandbox phenomenon would be sweet and charming. But even then, I get the feeling some of the mobs, specifically the zombies or pigs may not be quite as charming.

One game I am on the fence with would be Read Dead Redemption 2, on the one hand the smell of cooking by a campfire would warm the soul. On the other hand, you’re in the Wild West and bathing regularly isn’t something you can easily do. You’re surrounded by horses and disease and still over four decades away from deodorant becoming popularized… so maybe leave the smell ability optional for this one.

Now, there are plenty of games where I think this tech would be detrimental rather than an enhancement, I mean can you imagine the smell that must come off Donkey Kong? And Crash Bandicoot doesn’t seem like the cleanest feller around.

Street fighter would stink of blood and sweat, as would most sports games…

Even Mario is a plumber, who spends a lot of time in the sewers, which can’t be sanitary, digital or not!

Racing games could be hit or miss, I personally like the smell of petrol and the fumes but this isn’t to everybody’s taste.

Then we have the likes of Fallout or Dying Light. I personally have never been in a nuclear fallout zone or smelled the aftermath of an atomic bomb, but I can’t imagine it’s a scent of lavender or roses. And the rotting flesh of the mutants or zombies in these games must be overpowering. Pee-ew!

So, overall, I think that maybe this technology should stay apart from the mainstream as out of the five senses, smell would be bottom of the list to experience when gaming, mainly due to the content and setting of most games. Maybe as an optional concept in the future it could work, or if games are specifically designed for it like they are with VR, but for me, I think better kept not smelling our favourite digital realms.