Oculus VR’s Rift is now facing a new competition in the form
of Sony’s Project Morpheus, which was unveiled at this year’s Game Developers
Conference at San Francisco, California. The announcement was led by Sony
Entertainment Worldwide Studio head Shuhei Yoshida who gave out a few details
about the company’s VR prototype.
The device will be compatible with the PlayStation 4 and
will feature a 1080p display with a 90-degree field of view. The current
prototype connects to the PS4 via HDMI and USB through a cable that’s 5 meters
long, although Sony said that the final design will be able to connect to the
console wirelessly.
PlayStation’s R&D engineer Richard Marks also took the
stage during the event to give additional details about Project Morpheus.
According to Marks, Sony is still currently developing several aspects of the
headset’s components including that for visuals, sound, tracking, control and
content. At the moment, Sony’s expertise in optics and imaging, as well as
existing products such as the PlayStation Camera, Move and DualShock
controllers offer a ready-made solution for the Project.
As for the audio part, Marks mentioned that the company is
now looking into a so-called 3D binaural
tech to help the device give consumers an immersive audio experience.
Moreover, Sony mentioned they are already talking with various game developers including
Epic Games, Crytek, Autodesk and Unity to name a few in order to address the
issue with content.
