Wired has somehow gotten Sony to spill the beans about their Project Morpheus virtual reality headset. It’s going to come out sometime next year, and Sony’s focus is to build a huge library of games.
Sony was supposed to showcase their Project Morpheus and talk about their VR device Monday at their E3 keynote, but it didn’t happen like we expected. Sony just stated that it’s going to be a social event. Fortunately for us, Wired managed to get the president of Sony’s Worldwide Studios Shuhei Yoshida to talk.
” We need to convince PS4 owners to spend several hundred dollars to purchase a Morpheus headset, on top of the PS4 they already have, and more gaming content is what will convince them.”, Shuhei Yoshida has said.
Can’t say I disapprove with their view on things, and I actually applaud their stance. When the time comes to look for virtual reality headsets I’ll choose the one that offers a huge library of games, and not just a headset that will allow me to watch movies and surf Facebook – I’m looking at you Oculus Rift, which, hopefully, you won’t become a Facebook VR platform.
Yoshida, and Adam Boyes, who is Sony VP of publisher and developer relations, said that the company will showcase during E3 almost 20 demos so users can get a taste of what Project Morpheus is all about. Besides ““small indie teams [and] outfits.” as Boyes puts it, Sony will also support development of Horizon: Zero Dawn, a new IP, for their VR device, and a version of Ubisoft’s Trackmania.
“We have 30 or more games being developed that we are tracking — not all of them will come out at launch, but there are serious efforts being made on all of them,” the two have been reported of telling Wired.
More so, the two also point out that porting a virtual reality game from Oculus Rift to Project Morpheus may take only about a couple of days, and that the company is trying its best to fully support developers, and make their lives easier.
But can Project Morpheus go against the really popular Facebook-owned Oculus Rift? The VR company just announced its partnership with Microsoft, and Oculus managed to snag a couple of well-known dev companies to release exclusive titles on their platforms – Square Enix, Insomniac Games, Ready at Dawn, amongst others.
And let’s not forget HTC, and Valve’s alliance – can their SteamVR, also known as Vive, manage to get the needed attention from gamers? Valve has announced that they will feature a huge library of games easily downloadable through their Steam platform.
I’m going to wait this battle out, and I’m not going to jump head first. I’m more inclined of buying the SteamVR to be honest – Project Morpheus also seems really great. Don’t know what to say about Oculus Rift – since the news that they have been acquired by Facebook has been publicly announced, I’m feeling a little bit sceptical. The might sway me over – the company has announced that they are supporting developers with over $10 million.
Deborah Campbell
