Switch-like patent from Sony surfaces, but don’t get too excited

Someone spotted a recently published patent from Sony that was filed a few years ago, that looks surprisingly like a Switch, but it's really nothing to get too hyped over.

An eagle-eyed NeoGAF user 'ponpo' spotted a patent that Sony filed back in 2015 that looks quite a bit like the Nintendo Switch. The patent was only recently published and features an image of a tablet like device with pieces on the side that appear to be half-controllers.

Nothing in the patent implied that the controller panels can be removed.

Check it out:

Now, it's nothing to get too excited about – plenty of patents that are filed never see the light of day and this doesn't necessarily mean that Sony is working on a handheld that looks like this to follow up the Vita. In fact, Sony has a product named the Xperia that is a tablet and this patent could very well be another iteration of that tablet.

Heck, it could even be an accessory for the Xperia tablet or a Xperia smartphone. Sure, there's a chance that this could be a standalone handheld device from Sony, but it could also be like the PlayStation VR glove patent that amounted to nothing thus far.