Sony Reveals New Virtual Reality Headset

Ben Sherry ’17 / Emertainment Monthly Staff Writer

On March 18th at GDC (the Game Developers Conference), Sony executive Shuhei Yoshida unveiled a new virtual reality headset exclusive to the Playstation 4, codenamed Project Morpheus. At the conference, Yoshida spoke about the demand for new innovation in game immersion. He added that this new development in VR has the opportunity to shape the future of games as we know them. Sony has been working on Project Morpheus in secret since 2010, and in the weeks leading up to this event some facts were leaked out to the press, such as that Project Morpheus boasts a 1080p displays as well as 360 tracking.

This new development in VR may spark the beginning of a kind of VR war between the Morpheus and the incredibly popular Oculus Rift, which has announced its special edition developer’s kit at the conference as well. It will be interesting to see how both the Morpheus and Oculus differentiate themselves from each other to make themselves more interesting to consumers. Neither the Oculus nor Morpheus have set release dates, but the Oculus’ developers kit can be bought directly from them and can be used to both play and develop games for the hardware.

Just considering looks, the Morpheus appears to be much more fluidly designed, lighter than the Oculus and fitting well with the rest of the Playstation family’s streamlined technology. The Oculus’ design has improved over the years, with the latest design still obviously being for developers only but still more streamlined and slick that it has been in years past. In any event, it looks like many companies are putting their chips down on virtual reality as being the next big thing in video games, and it will be incredibly interesting to see if it takes off like so many hope it will.

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