Project Morpheus Arrives In 2016 As PlayStation VR

[Fanghawk]

Project Morpheus Arrives In 2016 As PlayStation VR

Sony's virtual reality headset has been renamed PlayStation VR, and will be showcased in Japan this week.

It's been a long time coming, but it finally seems the next big leap in gaming will probably involve virtual reality. Between the <a href=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/140707-Oculus-Rift-Consumer-Edition-VR-Arrives-In-2016#&gid=gallery_4123&pid=1>Oculus Rift making waves years before release while <a href=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/140268-Vive-Devkit-Free-For-Qualified-Devs>companies like Valve rush to build their own headsets, 2016 might be the year where VR becomes a fixture of gaming hardware. And console gamers won't be left out. Sony announced today that its Project Morpheus has been renamed "PlayStation VR", and will be showcased at the Tokyo Games Show leading into a 2016 release date.

Project Morpheus was the code name for a VR headset that would be fully compatible with PlayStation 4 and Vita systems. Outside of the rebranding there seem to be few changes - at least from a design perspective - but that might be a good thing. Even in 2014, <a href=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/video-games/conferences/gdc2014/11154-Hands-On-With-Sony-s-Project-Morpheus-VR-Headset#&gid=gallery_2224&pid=1>we felt the prototype was incredibly polished, and a strong contender in the growing VR market.

Sony has a week of VR presentations planned, including demos for Final Fantasy XIV, Danganronpa VR, Hatsune Miku, and <a href=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/137215-Tekken-Teams-Project-Morpheus-Demo-Pervs-on-Schoolgirls>Summer Lesson. And those aren't the only games promising VR support in the coming months - <a href=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/134479-Among-the-Sleep-Expands-to-PS4-and-Project-Morpheus>even indie games will activate VR support when the headset launches.

There are a few other PlayStation hardware announcements of note in Japan, although we don't yet know which are headed to other regions. For example, Sony is releasing PS4 face plates to customize your console, and new gold, silver, and see-through controllers. But as it stands, learning more about the PlayStation VR's performance this week is incredibly exciting.

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Source: Ars Technica, via <a href=http://gizmodo.com/project-morpheus-has-a-new-name-playstation-vr-1730765041>Gizmodo

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[dochmbi]

I wonder how much the graphics will have to be downscaled to get acceptable resolution and framerate. Remember that VR is extremely sensitive to frame drops and stuttering, so you need a perfectly smooth framerate for a good experience that won't induce nausea.

For PC VR, a GTX 970 was recommended as the minimum by Oculus and the PS4 is much weaker, maybe a third or a quarter of that processing power.

 

[Lightknight]

I wonder how much the graphics will have to be downscaled to get acceptable resolution and framerate. Remember that VR is extremely sensitive to frame drops and stuttering, so you need a perfectly smooth framerate for a good experience that won't induce nausea.

For PC VR, a GTX 970 was recommended as the minimum by Oculus and the PS4 is much weaker, maybe a third or a quarter of that processing power.

I would view this as more in the category of new tech. It isn't going to be 4k 120+ FPS like we definitely want it to be.

But that's OK, I've been enjoying dicking around on the ol Google Cardboard and that certainly isn't high resolution/framerates by any stretch of the imagination. I think to start with we're just going to need stuff that is "good enough". Make no mistake, the average PC can't pull off 4k with 120+ FPS. So it isn't even necessarily just a problem relegated to consoles. I do anticipate smaller levels with higher load times in between though. I could also see a lot of cartoony games doing well in an effort to really cut down on the need for high end graphics and processing.