It’s still in its very early stages right now, but the Project Morpheus VR headset has nonetheless been unveiled by Sony, and can be experienced now by attendees of the ongoing Game Developers Conference in San Francisco. Equipped with a visor-style design, this head-mounted display works with the PlayStation Camera to deliver a virtual reality experience in front of your eyes in 1080p full HD resolution no matter where you move your heads.
Project Morpheus is meant for the PS4, and at the moment, there’s no word on when a commercial launch could take place. Built-in inertial sensors on the head mount unit as well as the PlayStation Camera facilitate the tracking of head orientation and movement, thus offering a clear image of the virtual world no matter where the head moves. PS Move will of course be supported as well. For instance, in a game involving sword fighting, the motion controlled accessory will act as a weapon, and Project Morpheus will reproduce the player’s hands and sword within the game.
This device also benefits from the 3D audio technology developed by Sony. Apart from the sense of sound coming from front, behind, left and right, Project Morpheus is able to re-create stereoscopic sounds coming from below and above the gamers as well. Moreover, the sounds that you hear are subject to changing in real-time depending on your head orientation. Although Project Morpheus is being demonstrated at the GDC right now, it’s SDK is still not ready. It will be dished out to developers as soon as it is.
Games on which the power of Project Morpheus can be experienced at the conference include EVE Valkyrie, Thief and Sony’s very own tech demos, The Castle which shows various VR interactions using PS Move and The Deep which lets you observe the waters from the inside a shark proof cage.
Here’s a look at the current specifications of the device:
– Component: Processor unit, head-mounted unit
– Display Method: LCD
– Panel Size: 5 inches
– Panel Resolution: 1920 × RGB × 1080 (960 × RGB × 1080 per eye)
– Field of View: 90 degrees
– Sensors: Accelerometer, Gyroscope
– Connection interface: HDMI and USB
– Function: 3D audio, Social Screen