Project Morpheus Almost Complete

News
By Kevin Parrish
published

Sony Worldwide Studios president Shuhei Yoshida recently spoke with the Wall Street Journal and told the outlet that Project Morpheus is 85 percent complete. He wouldn't say when the HMD would hit store shelves or how much it will cost consumers, but he did mention that many components are also used in smartphones, which should keep the price tag low.

Sony is targeting gamers as Morpheus' core audience, but the company is hoping that the tech will draw in non-gamers as well. "With the Morpheus and PlayStation 4, we can offer them a totally new virtual reality experience in a lighthearted and fun manner," he said. Non-gaming applications could include visual textbooks, driving lessons and so on.

Just recently Project Morpheus was demonstrated at the Tokyo Game Show. The company provided a sea exploration game, which had participants making swimming moves as they interacted with the virtual environment.

According to CVG, Yoshida said back in August that the Move motion controller will spark a new interest in motion detection once players demand 3D motion tracking while using Morpheus. The PlayStation 4 Camera will also be a requirement for Morpheus, as its job will be to pinpoint head tracking data. Currently, it's mainly used as a webcam.

Sony revealed Project Morpheus back in March, a visor-styled HMD with built-in inertial sensors that work with the PlayStation Camera to track the user's head movements and orientation. There's also Sony's 3D audio technology that not only addresses the front, back and sides, but the spaces above and below the players, providing a realistic experience.

"Along with PlayStation Camera, Wireless Controller for PS4, and PS Move, Morpheus will deliver immersive breakthrough entertainment experiences to gamers through the PS4 system, leveraging SCE's expertise across key areas for VR – including display/optics, audio, tracking, control, ease of use, and content," said Sony's press release.

The specifications include a 90 degree field of view, HDMI and USB connections, a resolution of 1080 x 960 for each eye (equal to 1920 x 1080), an accelerometer, a gyroscope and a five-inch LCD panel.

With all that said, is it possible gamers will see Project Morpheus this Christmas? We'll see what happens over the next several months.

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Kevin Parrish
12 Comments Comment from the forums
  • everlast66
    In some of their previous announcements they metioned the Morpheus will be compatable with PC as well. Is this still the case, seems this might be slipping away with the PS4 camera requirement ...
    Reply
  • universal remonster
    I just received my Oculus DK2 before the weekend, and as neat as these HMD are, I do have to say that 960x1080 per eye (which the Rift also has) is not enough. The pixels are definitely visible and noticeable when the screen is only an inch away from your eyes. Looking at the Unreal Engine 4 demos that are available for it, it is kind of disappointing that for all of the super high res textures they use, you just cannot see really fine detail unless you get up close to objects. Also, one thing that I hope changes from the DK2 with Morpheus (or any HMD by any company) is how wide of view you have. On the Rift, the vertical view seems far enough that the top and bottom are out of view when looking forward, but side to side does not cover your peripheral vision so it feels like tunnel vision. I think Oculus is right in pushing back their consumer version for as long as it takes for the screen tech to catch up with higher pixel density instead of taking Sony's route and release with the best available screens today. Still looking forward to where this tech goes and would really like to play the next Gran Turismo with a Morpheus and steering wheel.
    Reply
  • computerguy72
    The Morpheus will be like a lot of other VR attempts - a piece of hardware with a few tech demos for it. They should think of somehow striking a deal with Oculus so they can get access to the large library of software they are building. If Sony puts this hardware out there with basically nothing and few prospects it will be a glorified doorstop no matter how good it is.
    Reply
  • gregor
    @universal remonsterer. Sounds like a job for an extra wide curved/flexible display. Although that would probably make it pretty expensive.
    Reply
  • ZolaIII
    The display technology is not a big problem, from density to curved ones. We are about to have & first 120 HZ IPS displays. All of this is needed but not & crucial. The thing that is lagging & far behind is GPUs from row processing power to needed response latencies not to mention need for more advanced lighting techniques. All do Nv & Imagination are doing some steps into the right direction concerning lighting we will need to wait a much longer for GPUs to met all conditions on desirable level. So don't expect much anytime soon!
    Reply
  • macawmatt
    Sell this at a reasonable price and have it compatible with GT7 and I will finally be buying a PS4.
    Reply
  • g-unit1111
    The trick is to bend a spoon with your mind.
    Reply
  • DefCello
    Glad to see more companies getting into the VR market! It should only increase the technology's credibility if they even do a half-decent job with it. I just hope for the sake of VR gaming that Sony gets some insane software support for this on their PS4. Otherwise, it may be too little too early and will smother rather than fuel the hype engine.

    I've crunched the numbers and at least for the Rift you need AT LEAST a 4k display to even begin competing with the DPI of 1080p desktop monitors. The perceived size of the display is just that big! Moving on, you would need a 4k display for each eye to compete with 1440p offerings, and a >8k display for each eye to compete with 4k display DPI.

    Even at the lower DPI of console gaming, you're going to need at least 1440p to compensate for the expanded viewing angles.

    Oculus Rift is doing it right. If you want new tech to be successful, you have to take your time and deliver a top-quality product, though the publicly available "Dev Kits" are a stroke of genius. The same can be said for HL2 Episode 3. We are impatient, but we tolerate it because we know that when it releases it will be amazing. :D
    Reply
  • f-14
    still 1D. it's the same sketchy tech as the VR glasses sold in the 90's that stereo scoped the games. i still have those glasses designed for Win98, Millenium and XP games.
    i keep them around just to knock oculous and any other VR claims back out into the psycho (LSD) drug world. 1950's tech no matter how they play it on 1D. real 3D is just that when computer programmers design games for 9D then they will probably be 3D.

    top bottom left right forward backwards and inside planes 4 axis is required to make 3D, impossible on a flat 1D screen. if you immersed yourself into a fish tank that would be more 3D than any claims made by computer programmers. VR is nothing more than a horror of fun house mirrors
    Reply
  • none12345
    These things need to be a curved screen larger then your field of view. They also need a maximum latency of a couple milliseconds. And they need massive resolution improvements.

    At 4 inches from your eye, 20/20 vision can see about 2000 pixels per inch, the legal standard for 20/20 vision is 876 dots per inch at 4 inches. Ideally you want these things as close to the eye as possible, but the average adult has trouble focusing at less then 4 inches from the eye. Children can focus down to around 2 inches. So, thats why im using 4 inches.

    Even using the legal standard rather then what the average 20/20 person can see at that distance, and assuming about a 12 inch curved screen(at 4 inches my field of view is larger then this, i duno exactly how large a human field of view is at this distance), you need a resolution of 10500 pixels by 7000 at least. Probably a good bit larger. Tho the resolution at the extreme of your field of vision doesnt have to be as good. So they can fudge it and it will still look fine if they wanted to.

    These things have a LONG way to go before they fill your field of view without pixels being visible. Even a 4k screen at 4 inches isnt going to cut it. The 1080p screen is not even close to cutting it.
    Reply