Press X to sniff: Can smelling a game make it more immersive?

Big gaming companies are already sniffing out new ways to make games more immersive.

At this year’s CES tech showcase in Las Vegas, Sony showed off its Future Immersive Entertainment Concept – a room with screens on every surface creating a 360-degree view.

The PlayStation maker said the experience included smells being pumped in to match the game being played.

Last year also saw the launch of the GameScent, a box designed to sit next to gaming PCs or consoles and release bursts of smell.

Its makers claim it uses AI to work out what smells to release and when to unleash them – including a metallic gunfire aroma, or flowers in a forest.

It’s been marketed as a consumer product, but is still pretty niche tech.

And more broadly there are questions over how much gamers care about making worlds more realistic and immersive.

While more Virtual Reality games and headsets are being developed, they’re still far from the main way people play games, and Sony has been criticised for neglecting software support for its own VR2 headset.

The popularity of lower-spec machines like Nintendo’s Switch also show it’s not always the most realistic graphics that sell games.