Meet Sony’s VR Headset – Project Morpheus

By Nathan Kirsch

Sony has been working on a VR headset for three years and it was finally unveiled as Project Morpheus this week at the Game Developers Conference. That is pretty interesting as the Oculus Rift was the first VR product that looks like it will soon become a consumer product and that first appeared in August 2012 and Legit Reviews was there to try it out in person. The Sony Project Morpheus PlayStation 4 headset uses a 1080p LCD display panel, offers a 90-degree field of view, and will integrate with the PlayStation Camera for tracking and PlayStation Move for motion control. The PlayStation Camera is required, PS Move is optional, depending on the title.

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Sony is only giving out a limited number of ‘tickets’ to people here at GDC to try out Project Morpheus and we weren’t able to get one today (Sony isn’t given any special considerations to media). From what we can tell Project Morpheus connects via HDMI and USB; with a 5-meter cable. From what we were told, Sony is trying to make is wireless and is fighting issue with weight and the lenses fogging up on the very early wireless prototypes. Not a big deal though as Sony is still making changes to the hardware and does not expect to launch a retail VR product in 2014. It was also interesting to learn from Sonys Jeff Stafford and Anton Mikhailov, the lead guys on the Project Morpheus VR headset, got development help from NASA on their VR headset. NASA has been working on VR for many years as a training tool for astronauts to simulate spacewalks. It looks like virtual reality will be coming into homes big time in 2015!

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Demos at Sony’s booth include a special special VR version of Square Enix’s Thief, as well as a game called The Deep from Sony’s London studio, a game called The Castle, and EVE Valkyrie. There was no mention on pricing as a retail product is many months away and the hardware isn’t locked down yet.

Project Morpheus Developer Kit Tech Specs:

  • Display Type: LCD
  • LCD panel size: 5 inches
  • Panel Resolution: 1920RGB1080 (960RGB1080 per eye)
  • 1000Hz head tracking
  • Field of View: 90 degrees
  • Sensors: Accelerometer, Gyroscope
  • Connection interface: HDMI + USB
  • 3D audio support
  • ‘Social Screen feature’ mirrors experience onto TV (Allows for unique asymmetric gameplay)
  • 3 meter working volume
  • Supports ‘forward prediction’
  • DualShock 4 and PS Move compatible
  • Highly adjustable unit
  • Direct on-board audio jack for headphones
  • No weight placed on nose or cheeks