14 DAY TRIAL // After lots of rumors and speculation, Sony has officially revealed its own virtual reality headset, in the form of Project Morpheus, which is currently in the prototype stage but still looks really impressive.
Plenty different reports have appeared in the last few months about Sony's virtual reality plans, with many claiming that the company is preparing to reveal its own headset designed to rival the Oculus Rift, for example, and bring the VR revolution onto the PS4 console.
Now, the reveal has finally been made by Sony at the Game Developers Conference 2014 in San Francisco by Shuhei Yoshida.
A prototype VR headset was unveiled to the world, codenamed Project Morpheus, and Yoshida quickly shared quite a few different technical details about it.
"At SCE we view innovation as an opportunity to build on our mission to push the boundaries of play," said Shuhei Yoshida, president of SCE Worldwide Studios. "Project Morpheus is the latest example of innovation from SCE, and we're looking forward to its continued development and the games that will be created as development kits get into the hands of content creators."
First, the head-mounted display has a 5-inch screen with a 1080p resolution and a field of view of 90 degrees.
Besides displaying supported games in virtual reality mode, the new system can work in conjunction with already-released Sony peripherals like the PS4 Camera or the PS Move, not to mention the DualShock 4 controller.
More specifically, the headset has special gyroscopes and accelerometers, not to mention a lightbar that can be tracked by the PS4 camera, allowing for complete immersion into the experience.
While the DualShock 4 controller can be used with Project Morpheus, Sony has emphasized that the PS Move motion control system works really well with the whole experience.
Besides these different aspects, Project Morpheus also uses proprietary Sony technology in terms of 3D audio that can recreate stereoscopic sound, which can change depending on the player's head movement.
Project Morpheus is currently a prototype and will serve as a test bed for ideas. Sony promises that a Software Development Kit will be released when ready so that game developers from around the world can bring their virtual reality titles to the PS4.
At the current edition of GDC, participants can visit Sony's booth and try out a few Project Morpheus tech demos like EVE Valkyrie or Thief, not to mention special VR experiences called The Castle, which focuses on PS Move, and The Deep, which emphasizes exploration of the ocean.