As if Sony weren’t already trying to take over every aspect of your home multimedia experience, it looks like they might be trying to take things a step further in the near future.

Hit the jump for more info.

In a recent patent, the company has laid claim to the following:

“Computer hardware, set top boxes, remote controls, and computer software and peripherals, namely audio and video receivers and transmitters and computer software programs enabling receipt, download, playing, personalized and interactive viewing, and rental of audio and video programming through the use of internet connections to computer hardware, receiver and transmitter apparatuses that connect to a television set or monitor, computer software for use in database management; computer software for uploading, manipulating, and enhancing digital content, documents, photographs, images, video, and audio; computer software for linking metadata tags with photographic and other media files to enable search engine retrieval and database software collections of files and their on-line sharing, and for linking metadata tags with web pages visited, to create links which users can maintain for themselves and share with on-line groups and website tagging, electronic storage of media objects and other digital content including text, documents, photographs, images, video, and audio”

Specifically, I’d like to focus the attention of the class on that bit that says “playing.” If this really is a new, improved PS3, this is the biggest early clue to its existence. While I personally think that the PS3 already has more bases covered than I can reasonably afford, this move would fall in line nicely with Piers Harding-Rolls’s prediction that multimedia-equipped systems will become more prevalent in 2008. Still, an upgrade to the PS3 in line with the likes of the Panasonic Q GameCube could end up being overlooked by the gaming community as a simple continuation of the fail train that Sony began at E3 2006. I think that Sony has been doing a fantastic job in the last few months with its PS3–lowering the price and making it a much more holiday-friendly buy for parents and all–so I don’t really see the sense in bulking up their device with more crap that most people won’t want or need while prospectively jacking the price back up. It seems like a step in the wrong direction.

Of course, another explanation for this patent could be a new gaming-type PC, but that brings up questions about licensing with Microsoft that I don’t particularly want to think about right now. At any rate, only time will tell if Sony is really planning on releasing a new, improved PS3. If anything were going to be announced, I’d expect something at E3 2008 in a few months.