Sony has revealed their own VR headset at GDC, named Project Morpheus, at the GDC 2014 conference. This is the company’s first move in virtual reality and one of the most aggressive moves into VR from a big corporation.
The Oculus Rift has really set the tone for how VR should be in the future and Sony is looking to make it even better with Project Morpheus. The team behind the project unveiled at a prototype at GDC, looking like a space helmet.
Sony has said it fixed some of the previous issues with their VR headset prototypes, including the weight balance and making sure it fits comfortably on the users face, not putting weight on the nose or cheeks.
Project Morpheus is about more than just playing games though, Sony wants to make a device capable of simulating real life areas, allowing users to go the Mars space station and other terrains.
We are not quite sure how Sony plans to implement real life areas like the Mars space station and make it so the textures and quality of the station actually feel like real life, it will be a big ask.
Sony is going up against some heavy competition, Microsoft, Valve and obviously Oculus are all looking to make the next step in VR and have their own headsets incoming, alongside social devices like Google Glass.
To be a big player in the market, Sony needs to provide killer apps. At GDC, Sony says “presence is the killer app” hinting again at the immersion factor of real life areas being enough to sell the device.
No release date has been announced for Project Morpheus, but Sony did say they will be sending out an SDK to developers in a few months, the list of partners right now includes Epic Games, Crytek, Autodesk, Unity and a few more.
