
Sony announces Project Morpheus, a virtual reality headset coming to PS4 - nzonbi
http://www.polygon.com/2014/3/18/5524058/playstation-vr-ps4-virtual-reality
======
modeless
Before the announcement Oculus said, paraphrasing, that more people doing VR
is good because it means devs will have more incentive to invest in made-for-
VR content. Oculus's worst fear is not that Sony will make better hardware
than them, but that Sony might make _bad_ hardware that would give people a
bad experience (motion sickness, etc) and kill this new VR renaissance before
it has a chance to start.

[http://www.ign.com/videos/2014/03/18/oculus-on-sonys-
rumored...](http://www.ign.com/videos/2014/03/18/oculus-on-sonys-rumored-vr-
headset)

~~~
userbinator
> motion sickness

The hardware doesn't matter; some people just cannot stand certain forms of
stimulation-without-movement that occurs with virtual reality. I can't play
FPS or watch videos containing lots of movement on large screens for this
reason, and I doubt the experience would be any different for VR; if anything,
making the graphics more realistic would exacerbate the situation.

~~~
modeless
The hardware does matter. There will be VR games that don't induce motion
sickness in anyone, because they don't involve movement at all (other than
actual movement of your real head, reflected 1:1 in the virtual world). When
people think of VR they naively imagine virtual Call of Duty, but that's not
going to happen the way people imagine it. FPS is a genre designed for
traditional screens; VR will require new genres. I doubt ports of traditional
FPS games to VR will even be very popular.

~~~
FD3SA
Precisely. Simulation and piloting games will be the prime target for VR,
which are coincidentally my favorite genres. I can't wait to try flight sims
(e.g. DCS Warthog) and piloting games (e.g. Star Citizen). It will be a whole
new experience, with no motion sickness potential whatsoever.

~~~
DrStalker
There's always motion sickness potential. When you move your head there is a
delay before the image on the screen updates; make this small enough and you
won't notice, make it large enough and the world will appear laggy and
unresponsive.

It's definitely less likely to cause sickness than some of the other genres,
but not guaranteed safe.

~~~
jonmrodriguez
> When you move your head there is a delay before the image on the screen
> updates; make this small enough and you won't notice

Hence why hardware does matter

------
ekianjo
Meh, all the previous headsets from Sony in recent history were really, really
crappy (I tried most of them in exhibitions). Small angle of vision (making it
look like you play a game through a small window), unbalanced weight (you tend
to have you head looking down after a while), I really hope they are getting
their act together here if they want to compete. Occulus Rift has a lot of
headstart in that field.

~~~
lhl
The display is LCD so will be interesting to see how they do on persistence,
but the FOV is 90 degrees horizontal - about the same as Oculus' units. Full
PR here: [http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/sony-computer-
entert...](http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/sony-computer-
entertainment-announces-project-morpheus---a-virtual-reality-system-that-
expands-the-world-of-playstation4-ps4-250898211.html) (confirmation that this
is horizontal FOV in the Japanese PR:
[http://www.scei.co.jp/corporate/release/140319.html](http://www.scei.co.jp/corporate/release/140319.html)
)

From the presentation (see: [http://live.theverge.com/live-sony-playstation-
future-of-inn...](http://live.theverge.com/live-sony-playstation-future-of-
innovation-gdc-2014/) ) it looks like 1) they've been working seriously on
this for over 3 years and 2) they have taken the ideas of immersion/presence
to heart and are focused on VR as a medium, not as a gimmick.

Personally, I think it'll be good for Oculus and VR in general to have a
strong competitor w/ Sony. If it weren't PS4 only, I'd seriously consider
grabbing one. Of course, we'll have to see what Oculus has up their sleeves w/
DK2 tomorrow...

~~~
deletes
Oculus Rift FOV is 110°.

~~~
lhl
DK1 is ~110° diagonal, 90° horizontal, roughly equivalent (and varies a fair
amount w/ the lenses you use).

For comparison, the HMZs OP references are a HFOV of about 45°.

~~~
nrp
The field of view on the first Rift Development Kit is difficult to quantify
because it varies depending on the eye relief from the lens to the specific
user's eye. This is part of why there is a visual calibration procedure for
the kit.

In any case, the field of view on that hardware is generally lens limited and
the lenses are round, so the monocular field of view for most users is
circular. The diagonal field of view is then equal to the vertical and
horizontal field of view.

~~~
lhl
Is there public data/or a spreadsheet/simulator for eye/relief:fov (I assume
data for the A-C cups aren't relevant anymore) and accounting for binocular
overlap?

Also is there technical documentation on the prewarp shader and pixel
density/perceived resolution? I'm interested particularly in text rendering,
so really looking forward to the low persistence displays!

~~~
nrp
The best practices guide covers the design side of angular resolution and
binocular overlap: [http://static.oculusvr.com/sdk-
downloads/documents/OculusBes...](http://static.oculusvr.com/sdk-
downloads/documents/OculusBestPractices.pdf)

There are technical details on distortion correction in the SDK guide:
[http://static.oculusvr.com/sdk-
downloads/documents/Oculus_SD...](http://static.oculusvr.com/sdk-
downloads/documents/Oculus_SDK_Overview.pdf)

Much of this is in flux as we improve on both the methods and the specific
implementations, but the guides will be updated as we get there.

------
csmattryder
What I think will be the killer feature over Occulus Rift is that Project
Morpheus has 60 virtual speakers, which (from the liveblog commentary) could
lead to audio taking a bigger part in gaming.

I'm also looking forward to this tech being used for concert demos. I'd love
to strap this on and listen to AC/DC's Live At River Plate, all the sound and
the atmosphere of being there!

Shame that "no PC support has been announced" [1]. But some enterprising
hacker'll get it going, no doubt.

[1] [http://www.dualshockers.com/2014/03/18/sonys-ps4-virtual-
rea...](http://www.dualshockers.com/2014/03/18/sonys-ps4-virtual-reality-
headset-is-named-project-morpheus-pictures-inside/)

~~~
sillysaurus3
I bought a Razer Tiamat a couple years ago (a true 7.1 surround sound headset)
and it was one of the best purchases I've ever made. Imagine living your life
with one eye closed, then suddenly having the opportunity to open both eyes,
and how surprising it would be to realize that you have depth perception, etc.
That's sort of what experiencing true surround sound is like.

It requires a bit of tweaking to get configured properly though, which led to
a lot of negative reviews or people leaving reviews saying they weren't
impressed.

Experiencing actual 7.1 surround sound headphones (rather than simulated
surround) is kind of like a mini version of experiencing the Oculus Rift for
the first time, in terms of the "wow" factor when you finally get it working
properly. What Rift is to eyes, the Tiamat is to ears.

The reason headphones have had just two speakers till now is because people
have two ears, so we've incorrectly assumed that that's all that's needed. But
human ears are designed to capture 3D positional audio. Two speakers means
there are only two positions that audio can come from. 7.1 headphones simply
blow everything else out of the water. It's a very visceral experience that's
hard to articulate.

The takeaway is that having a headset which is capable of physically producing
soundwaves from 7 different directions at once is one of the coolest
experiences that any gamer can have. For casual gamers, it enhances the
experience and immersion of any game. For competitive gamers, you can hear
people sneaking up behind you, so you gain a competitive advantage.

All of this means that real (not simulated) 7.1 surround sound is a valuable
idea which till now has seemingly been overlooked by the gaming industry. The
first industry player that delivers a true positional surround sound
experience to the masses stands to profit handsomely, whether it's Oculus or
Sony or someone else. So build it!

(That said, I have no idea what 60 virtual speakers means, but I wanted to
share my experience with true positional surround sound. Also, the surround
sound headset works fine in tandem with the Rift. So until the Oculus guys
realize how important 3D positional audio is and ship their next product with
a pair of surround sound headphones, you can get the same effect right now
from the Tiamat.)

~~~
justin66
> The takeaway is that having a headset which is capable of physically
> producing soundwaves from 7 different directions at once is one of the
> coolest experiences that any gamer can have.

I'm pretty skeptical as to whether this really requires special headphones.
Amazing-sounding recordings made with a binaural head can be played back on
normal headphones, after all. It seems more like a signal processing problem.

Sort of analogous to the way Creative used to sell overwrought, overpriced
hardware for creating sound effects with EAX when the CPU and signal-
processing libraries could have been used to serve the same purposes.

~~~
nomailing
a recording from a binaural head cannot account for the different shapes of
pinnae that humans have. The outer ear of humans are shaped quite differently.
So each ear has his own transfer function which not only depends on frequency
but also on the direction of the sound.

~~~
justin66
I don't know: the stuff I remember hearing was pretty amazing and there wasn't
an ear measurement step in the listening process. If what you say is correct I
wonder how perfect the match has to be in practice. (but, to the point
regarding the magic headphones: this is something that could happen in the
software if you're simulating the whole thing)

------
ihuman
This is fantastic news. It is good to finally see some competition in the
modern VR headset industry. While the VR industry may be in it's infancy,
competition may help to accelerate its development. I can't wait until GDC,
where we can see how it compares to Oculus's headsets.

~~~
lhl
GDC is going on right now - this announcement was at GDC!

Oculus is likely to announce DK2 at a session tomorrow:

Wednesday, March 19 | 11:00am-12:00pm (PDT)

Working with the Latest Oculus Rift Hardware and Software (Presented by Oculus
VR) Speakers: Michael Antonov (Oculus VR), Nate Mitchell (Oculus VR) Format:
Sponsored Panel Track: Programming

Summary: Since the debut of the original Oculus Rift development kit at GDC
2013, we've shown off a set of critical improvements including a high-
definition display, positional tracking, and low-persistence support.
Likewise, behind the scenes we've also been making critical improvements to
the core Oculus SDK like new feature support, optimizations (particularly
around latency), and overall simplicity.In this talk, we'll discuss everything
you need to know to get started integrating the latest Oculus Rift hardware
with your VR game or experience. The talk will be split into an overview of
the latest hardware, a technical breakdown for engineers, an a game design
discussion relevant to the new features. We'll also talk about our vision for
future development hardware leading to the consumer Rift and what that path
might look like.

------
MBCook
It will be interesting to see the hands on reports when they start to come
out. The specs seem roughly comparable to the Occulus Rift, but Sony certainly
has a _ton_ of manufacturing power to make great the special screens in
quantity.

But the name "Project Morpheus" just sounded like they were trying too hard.
Of course this will probably get a much sexier name for release like
"Playstation Virtual Reality Headset Environment".

Occulus Rift is a pretty cool name.

~~~
TillE
I'm sure Sony can put together a nice hardware package, but I'd be very
skeptical about their ability to duplicate all the crucial work Oculus has
done with the software.

It's not trivial translating all the sensor data quickly and precisely into
game camera movements.

~~~
MBCook
Agreed. Sony is a hardware company, their software often leaves a lot to be
desired.

~~~
Narishma
Don't think so. They have top notch developers, especially in their
Playstation division.

------
zk00006
Can VR displays replace monitors for programming? It would be great to have
virtually unlimited screen size. Are there some problems I do not realize at
the moment?

~~~
danielbln
Eventually that's where it's going to go. At the moment resolution is the
biggest limiting factor and probably will be for a couple of more years.

------
nanidin
No thanks, I'll wait for Oculus to release something that is guaranteed to
work on my PC and not get locked into a Sony product - especially not after
the rootkit debacle, and retroactively disabling linux on the PS3.

------
jccooper
Bah. The real Project Morpheus features hovering rockets. Real ones.
[http://www.youtube.com/user/MorpheusLander](http://www.youtube.com/user/MorpheusLander)

~~~
deletes
The devs at Sony really like the matrix. Not very subtle.

~~~
jamesaguilar
Or the god on whom the character is based.

~~~
dagw
My money is on the comic book character.

------
userbinator
Live in _our_ world, play in ours.

------
anonymousab
I'm curious as to how they'll manage the resolution, frame rate and low
latency required, on the PS4's modest hardware, for modern games.

------
adamsrog
Lacking stereoscopic vision, I always have a hard time with the emergence of
these new technologies. While I am naturally excited by it's potential, I'm
bummed out I'll never get to experience it first-hand and secretly hope it
doesn't become the norm (3D videos, VR headsets, etc).

Has anyone without stereoscopic vision tried any of these devices? What was
your experience?

~~~
dimillian
I'm in the same situation, but maybe worst, I'm stereoblind because one of my
eye have only a peripheral vision. Anyone have feedback for VR headsets ?

~~~
danielbln
Which means VR to you will be as "good" as real life, nothing to worry here.
You'll still get all the benefits of parallax. Also, check out some people
using the Rift as sort of a corrective lense for stereo blindness:
[http://www.reddit.com/r/oculus/comments/1n6xyo/i_am_stereobl...](http://www.reddit.com/r/oculus/comments/1n6xyo/i_am_stereoblind_but_the_oculus_rift_is_my/)

------
grannyg00se
What a show of support for consumer grade VR. The Oculus Rift seemed to me as
though it would always be a special little paradise for nerds. But this. This
is mainstream and could blow the market wide open. I hope the OR team is ready
to ride this wave.

------
CmonDev
I wonder if they will charge a mere $1000 or much more as usual?

------
dreadsword
News!
[http://techwatching.com/page.php?i=22780](http://techwatching.com/page.php?i=22780)

IIRC the big differentiator of Occulus Rift was lag - i.e.: to be truly
immersive and "real" the system has to process and respond incredibly quickly.
No mention of that anywhere from Sony.

------
bobowzki
Well this VR thing is about to take off...

------
hydralist
I'm still on the fence, I am a current PS3 owner and figured PS4 was a logical
next purchase. Then I realized how awesome Kinect was visiting my friend and
how much more of a 'next gen' feel it had. This might be the killer hardware
but I'd rather just have an Oculus Rift :(

~~~
maccard
I played both consoles for about 3-4 hours pre launch (each), knowing that I
was going to buy one. I was a 360 owner last gen, and PS2 the previous gen, so
I don't have any real allegiances. However, I much preferred the PS4, not only
for game selection, but the controllers felt better, and Kinect is great at
first, but it really is a bit gimmicky after a while. Kinect sports is fun
with friends, but not so much on your own. PS4 has exclusives like Infamous,
Killzone, Knack(which I thoroughly enjoyed), Resogun, and loads more. Xbox has
Ryse(didn't like it) dead rising(granted, it's fun) Forza(I want this one)and
Titanfall(on the fence, probably don't care to be honest). The selection of
games on PS4 is far superior, coupled with faster installation times, a much
smaller box, and better looking games, makes it a no brainer IMHO

~~~
ericraio
What I appreciate most about the PS4 is how the system is architected. I love
that PS4 just consumes a lot less power then a PS3 and Xbox One. You can tell
without even looking at the specs because of the size. It not only consumes
less power but gives you the performance.

------
notastartup
I have a feeling Sony is going to blow Oculus out of the water. Even more
troubling if this headset makes its way to the PC which seems likely.

~~~
axefrog
I have a feeling that Sony will do quite the opposite. They're already using
an LCD display, which Oculus has moved away from because the pixel refresh
rate is too slow. If Sony are already showing a lack of understanding in one
area, it's quite possible that they'll be neglecting other areas that Oculus
have been putting a lot of R&D time into. I think what's likely is that
someone high up in Sony knows about Oculus and commanded his minions to "make
us something like what Oculus is doing". There is no doubt in my mind that
it'll fall short in numerous areas.

------
NiceOneBrah
"Have you ever had a dream, Neo, that you were so sure was real? What if you
were unable to wake from that dream? How would you know the difference between
the dream world and the real world?"

------
apranam2
Is this flight 370????

[http://www.tomnod.com/nod/challenge/malaysiaairsar2014/map/6...](http://www.tomnod.com/nod/challenge/malaysiaairsar2014/map/654342)

