Sony Project Morpheus virtual reality headset
The big guns are coming for virtual
reality, and they know what they are doing. A hands-on demo with Sony’s
Project Morpheus proved it really is a comfortable, stylish and mighty
option among the growing number of VR headsets. I’m already hungry for
more time on the platform.
Sony Worldwide Studios president Shu Yoshida revealed
this second version of the Morpheus headset Tuesday, the first major
update since Sony announced it at the 2014 Game Developers Conference.
It now has a 5.7-inch screen with a 1920 x 1080 pixel RGB OLED display,
latency that clocks in at less than 18 milliseconds, a 120
frames-per-second refresh rate and a 100-degree field of view.
 |
The Project Morpheus virtual reality headset is much more comfortable to wear than its rivals.
Signe Brewster |
That 100-degree view means I still had
black at the edges of my vision, but the screen itself looked fantastic.
I didn’t notice any latency (a disconnect between when I turned my head
and the picture caught up). Everything felt smooth and responsive.
There’s still a bit of the “screen door effect,” where you can see a
grid laid over the entirety of your vision, but it was fine enough that I
only noticed it when I looked for it.
Even the goggles themselves
didn’t distract me. Project Morpheus is easily the comfiest VR headset
I’ve ever worn. Its adjustable strap keeps the weight on your head
instead of your nose, giving you the sensation that the headset is
simply floating in front of your face. Finally, it’s easy to concentrate
on just being in virtual reality.
That sense was compounded by the Move
controllers I held in my hands, basically joysticks with large bulbs on
their tops. They tracked my hands, but not fingers, seemingly
exactly, and had well-placed triggers for shooting guns and initiating
other actions.
 |
London Heist, one of the demos available for Sony’s Project Morpheus at GDC 2015
|
The controllers were showcased perfectly in London Heist, an
early standout among the content Sony is showcasing on the headset. You
begin in an interrogation chair in a squalid, dark room, where a
tattooed man in an undershirt brandishes a propane torch in an attempt
to get you to spill.
Then you are transported back in time to
the event he is so curious about. In an ornate room, you pull open the
drawers and cabinet doors of a desk until you find a key, which unlocks a
compartment containing a diamond. Alarm bells sound and guards begin
firing. You pull a gun out of another drawer and shoot back until all
the guards are dead.
It’s an excellent demo of the entire
Morpheus system. The Move controllers captured my aim with the virtual
gun perfectly. I could step toward the desk and lean down to look into
different compartments. You don’t have to worry about moving in Morpheus
— it just works.
 |
Bedroom Robots, one of the demos available for Sony’s Project Morpheus at GDC 2015.
|
But the demo that really grabbed my attention was Japan Studio’s Bedroom Robots.
You find yourself in a vaguely cartoonish room where the top of a
dresser is covered in robots running on treadmills, racing cars and even
flying a little drone. Lean in close and the robots respond; when I
checked in on a little guy floating on an inner tube in a pool, a shark
suddenly popped up and dragged him underwater.
Virtual reality content tends to trend toward dark, moody scenes engineered to make you feel tense. The brightly colored Bedroom Robots was
sheer joy, and it showed off just how crisp Project Morpheus’ screen
can look. I felt as if I were inside Andy’s room in “Toy Story.”
The robots reappeared in another Japan
Studio demo where the standard Playstation controller I held in my real
hands appeared in virtual reality. I pushed buttons to turn on music,
causing the robots to dance gleefully, and turn the lights off. When I
pointed the virtual controller, now a flashlight, at the robots, they
cowered from the light before going back to dancing.
 |
One of the demos available for Sony’s Project Morpheus at GDC 2015. Sony
|
I’m glad Sony is thinking that way. In an updated demo of The Deep,
I descended in a shark cage past sea turtles and luminescent jellyfish.
Near the bottom of the ocean a shark began circling. It tore off the
front of the cage and continued to circle, getting closer and closer in
its attacks. I could walk to the edge of the cage, but do nothing to
stop the shark. It might be a frightening, wow-inducing experience for a
first-time virtual reality user, but I barely reacted. I wanted to
interact.
 |
The Deep, one of the demos available for Sony’s Project Morpheus at GDC 2015. Sony
|
Marks said Sony plans to make small changes to the Morpheus hardware and software before the big consumer release next year,
but the bigger goal is awareness. Sony wants everyone to understand the
appeal of virtual reality, and Marks thinks it is in a good place to do
that thanks to existing Playstation users. He said Project Morpheus
tackles a different group than the PC-based Oculus Rift and all the
mobile options.
If Project Morpheus were available today, I
wouldn’t hesitate to buy it. The only thing missing is content. Sony
has strong relationships with the studios behind plenty of blockbuster
video games that could trickle into the virtual reality space by this
time next year. The question is whether it can beat out (or find its
niche alongside) Oculus, which has been courting every developer in the
industry for years now, and fellow gaming big shot Valve.
Courtesy: Gigaom
