Cool.
Obviously hard to show this to us in video form, but hopefully we gets lots of impressions & feedback. Plus, it will be interesting to hear what Sony's VR plans are.
Sony hosting Project Morpheus event during Game Developers Conference
- Thread starter menace-uk-
- Start date
Cool.
Obviously hard to show this to us in video form, but hopefully we gets lots of impressions & feedback. Plus, it will be interesting to hear what Sony's VR plans are.
Definitely...exciting possibilities. I just don't understand how it's going to be 4 hours long?!? They must have a lot to show.
Also I'm assuming this is going to head to head with Oculus? If a developer makes a game for one, is it easily ported to the other?
Honestly, Morpheus seems more ambitious from jump. Oculus is almost finished, yet it is still limited to 180° tracking at 1:1. Morpheus is still in prebeta and it has already tackled the full 360° at 1:1. And because it uses the light bar from the DS4, the Move controllers are supported by default, albeit 180° 1:1 hand motion. So in essences, it has already achieved about 70% of what true VR really is. By adding a camera on the front of the headset, they can increase the flexibility of the users' hand motion, which I believe they probably will do. Hopefully I'm not overshooting myself here, but I don't think that they are going stop there since this IS Sony we are talking about.
I don't think Oculus is terrible by no means. I just think by Morpheus being developed through the hands of Sony, they may very well turn the heat way up on these guys and introduce VR is its rarest form.
http://blog.us.playstation.com/2015/03/03/project-morpheus-ps4-vr-upgraded-coming-in-2016/
Project Morpheus: PS4 VR Upgraded, Coming in 2016
+ Posted by Shuhei Yoshida on Mar 03, 2015 // President, SCE Worldwide Studios
Hello from GDC 2015! About a year ago, we unveiled a prototype for Project Morpheus, the virtual reality system for PS4. Since then, we’ve been hard at work making the system even better. I’m pleased to return to GDC with an update on our progress, bringing us one step closer to its consumer release. We believe VR will shape the future of games, and I can’t wait for you to try Project Morpheus when it launches in the first half of 2016.
Our goal with VR is to deliver a sense of presence, making the player feel as though they’ve stepped inside the world of a game. The new Project Morpheus prototype brings us closer to that goal, as it improves the visual experience and tracking accuracy, both of which are critical to achieving sense of presence.
Key changes:
Revealing this new prototype is an important step in our journey to release Project Morpheus, but there is more to come. We’ll share additional details at E3 and beyond. In particular, we’ll show more VR games at E3 and later events as we get closer to launch.
A new dimension of gaming is almost here, and PlayStation again is at the forefront with Project Morpheus.
Project Morpheus: PS4 VR Upgraded, Coming in 2016
Hello from GDC 2015! About a year ago, we unveiled a prototype for Project Morpheus, the virtual reality system for PS4. Since then, we’ve been hard at work making the system even better. I’m pleased to return to GDC with an update on our progress, bringing us one step closer to its consumer release. We believe VR will shape the future of games, and I can’t wait for you to try Project Morpheus when it launches in the first half of 2016.
Our goal with VR is to deliver a sense of presence, making the player feel as though they’ve stepped inside the world of a game. The new Project Morpheus prototype brings us closer to that goal, as it improves the visual experience and tracking accuracy, both of which are critical to achieving sense of presence.
Key changes:
- OLED display: In exchange for the 5 inch LCD, the new Morpheus VR headset is equipped with a 5.7 inch 1920 X RGB X 1080 resolution OLED display. This new screen expands the field of view and enables low persistence, removing motion blur.
- 120hz refresh rate: The previous refresh rate spec has been doubled for this new prototype, which means games for Morpheus can be rendered at 120fps. When combined with the OLED display’s high refresh rate and the power of PS4, Morpheus is able to output amazingly smooth visuals.
- Super low latency: We know how critical low latency is to delivering a great VR experience, and we’ve reduced latency to less than 18ms, about half of what the first Morpheus prototype had. Low latency is critical to deliver a sense of presence, at the same time making the VR experience comfortable to players.
- More accurate tracking: To make positional tracking more precise, we’ve added three LEDs to the headset – one on the front and two on the side – for a total of nine LEDs to support robust 360 degree tracking.
- User-friendly design: We’ve made the Morpheus VR headset easier to put on and take off, with a single band design and quick release button. The headband supports the weight of the unit on the top of your head, so there is no pressure on your face. Other components have also been adjusted and configured to make the headset lighter, so that players do not find the headset cumbersome or uncomfortable to use.
Revealing this new prototype is an important step in our journey to release Project Morpheus, but there is more to come. We’ll share additional details at E3 and beyond. In particular, we’ll show more VR games at E3 and later events as we get closer to launch.
A new dimension of gaming is almost here, and PlayStation again is at the forefront with Project Morpheus.
http://blog.us.playstation.com/2015/03/03/project-morpheus-ps4-vr-upgraded-coming-in-2016/
Project Morpheus: PS4 VR Upgraded, Coming in 2016
+ Posted by Shuhei Yoshida on Mar 03, 2015 // President, SCE Worldwide Studios
Hello from GDC 2015! About a year ago, we unveiled a prototype for Project Morpheus, the virtual reality system for PS4. Since then, we’ve been hard at work making the system even better. I’m pleased to return to GDC with an update on our progress, bringing us one step closer to its consumer release. We believe VR will shape the future of games, and I can’t wait for you to try Project Morpheus when it launches in the first half of 2016.
Our goal with VR is to deliver a sense of presence, making the player feel as though they’ve stepped inside the world of a game. The new Project Morpheus prototype brings us closer to that goal, as it improves the visual experience and tracking accuracy, both of which are critical to achieving sense of presence.
Key changes:
- OLED display: In exchange for the 5 inch LCD, the new Morpheus VR headset is equipped with a 5.7 inch 1920 X RGB X 1080 resolution OLED display. This new screen expands the field of view and enables low persistence, removing motion blur.
- 120hz refresh rate: The previous refresh rate spec has been doubled for this new prototype, which means games for Morpheus can be rendered at 120fps. When combined with the OLED display’s high refresh rate and the power of PS4, Morpheus is able to output amazingly smooth visuals.
- Super low latency: We know how critical low latency is to delivering a great VR experience, and we’ve reduced latency to less than 18ms, about half of what the first Morpheus prototype had. Low latency is critical to deliver a sense of presence, at the same time making the VR experience comfortable to players.
- More accurate tracking: To make positional tracking more precise, we’ve added three LEDs to the headset – one on the front and two on the side – for a total of nine LEDs to support robust 360 degree tracking.
- User-friendly design: We’ve made the Morpheus VR headset easier to put on and take off, with a single band design and quick release button. The headband supports the weight of the unit on the top of your head, so there is no pressure on your face. Other components have also been adjusted and configured to make the headset lighter, so that players do not find the headset cumbersome or uncomfortable to use.
Revealing this new prototype is an important step in our journey to release Project Morpheus, but there is more to come. We’ll share additional details at E3 and beyond. In particular, we’ll show more VR games at E3 and later events as we get closer to launch.
A new dimension of gaming is almost here, and PlayStation again is at the forefront with Project Morpheus.
Yeah, that sucks. I was hoping it would be this year, but this is Sony, they love announcing stuff decades before we get it
I was initially sceptical about Morpheus because of the extremely high framerates required for comfortable VR but after reading a few articles yesterday I'm really excited for it now.
The headset is the only one confirmed so far to have a 120hz refresh rate, RGB screen (DK2 uses a pentile screen which only has 2 subpixels green and blue opposed to RGB 3 subpixel red green blue) which gives a higher quality picture.
I thought the games would look like PS2 quality if they needed to run natively at 120 fps but Sony have come up with a way to boost games that run natively at 60fps to 120 fps(Sony calls it Reprojection, a way of upscaling framerate).
The visual quality of the games shown with it yesterday look great. The game demo Magic controller runs at a native 120 fps.
I'm happy to admit I was wrong on Morpheus and underestimated the PS4, well done Sony. This will be a day one buy for me.
The headset is the only one confirmed so far to have a 120hz refresh rate, RGB screen (DK2 uses a pentile screen which only has 2 subpixels green and blue opposed to RGB 3 subpixel red green blue) which gives a higher quality picture.
I thought the games would look like PS2 quality if they needed to run natively at 120 fps but Sony have come up with a way to boost games that run natively at 60fps to 120 fps(Sony calls it Reprojection, a way of upscaling framerate).
The visual quality of the games shown with it yesterday look great. The game demo Magic controller runs at a native 120 fps.
I'm happy to admit I was wrong on Morpheus and underestimated the PS4, well done Sony. This will be a day one buy for me.
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I still don't care about VR. Good to see it is gaining some momentum, but this first gen of sets are going to be garbage.
I'm assuming it's that high so that when panning vision it's smooth. At 120fps there's zero possibility of a game looking like a current PS4 game. The horsepower just isn't there.
Most likely true, but they are giving the press plenty of time with it, so I'm waiting for impressions.
I wonder if MS brought any new Hololens stuff..? It would be interesting to hear comparisons.
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/di...oject-morpheus
Digital Foundry: Hands-on with Sony's near-final Project Morpheus
By Richard Leadbetter Published 04/03/2015
You're probably fully aware of the revised spec for the Project Morpheus development kit by now, said to closely resemble the capabilities of the final model: a native 1080p display is in place with full RGB sub-pixel precision, OLED display technology is a lock, with a phenomenal 120Hz refresh confirmed. The spec is highly impressive on paper, but how does it feel once the visor is lowered into place?
We can safely say that it's a significant improvement over the already impressive developer HMD we've already tested. Looking beyond the raw spec, at the more practical level, Sony's designers have created a significant milestone in crafting a lightweight headset, the redesigned strap not placing any significant pressure on your face, distributing and balancing weight between the forehead and the back of your skull. It feels comfortable to wear, and we're curious to see how it holds up for extended periods.
The visor slots into place nicely - there's a button on the right of the underside that you hold down in order to move the display towards or away from your face. On a practical level, it works in setting yourself up for the best possible immersion offered by the kit, and it doubles up as means by which you can temporarily move the display away to orientate yourself in the environment. We're also happy to report that Sony has solved the troublesome 'glasses issue' - as a wearer of spectacles myself, there were no problems whatsoever with the HMD clashing with my eyewear. Also worthy of note is that no form of calibration is required - once the visor is comfortably in place, everything just works.
While it's been a while since we tested the older LCD model, we spotted two clear improvements over the initial prototype. Firstly, the enhanced field of view creates a more potent form of immersion - the black 'borders' that framed the left and right of the image previously are still there, but significantly reduced and now in peripheral vision. Secondly, and perhaps more crucially, image quality is also improved. It's not a revelatory change - the previous model also featured a full 1080p RGB display - but the motion blur is significantly reduced thanks to the lower persistence of the new, larger 5.7-inch OLED display.
PreviousNextView all
1/5 'In the flesh' photography of the revised Project Morpheus prototype, which Sony says closely resembles the final retail product due in 2016.
We only played the one demo - London Studio's Heist - and it allowed us to sample what is going to be a crucial element of the Morpheus SDK. The demo itself is visually rich, apparently running at 60fps, but the PS4 uses a form of frame-rate upscaling that Sony calls reprojection in order to give the illusion of a higher frame-rate. The idea is that midway between rendering each native image, the PS4 interpolates an intermediate frame based on revised motion data fed to the console from the HMD. Right now we'd say that the jury's out on the technology - it didn't exactly feel as though it was running at a significantly higher frame-rate and indeed, at some points it felt that the 60fps target wasn't adhered to. However, even if we're not quite dealing with super-slick perfection, the quality of the immersion is absolutely remarkable. This is VR that not only works but leaves a lasting impression. An hour on from the hands-on session and I'm still excited about it.
The demo begins with your avatar tied to a chair, facing interrogation from a hardman character in the Vinnie Jones mode. Stationary in the chair, there's not much you can do other than let the story play out, and allow your captor to blow smoke in your face - an interesting experience in stereoscopic 3D. However, as the interrogation continues, your gaze naturally wanders - you can look around the room in full 360 degrees across all axes. That's when the feeling of immersion really hits home. It's about acclimatising to your place in the virtual world.
It's not long before you're out of your seat, and exploring the environment, starting off with a quick tutorial on interaction with the game world via dual PlayStation Move controllers - one for each hand. Just like the castle demo we previously tested, Move is tracked in the real world, projecting your hands into the virtual environment. The Move triggers allow you to grasp anything you like - principally drawers you can open, and objects you can grab, hold in your hands, drop or throw.
Sony's Shuhei Yoshida reveals the four GDC 2015 demos we'll playing over the next few days, including the London Heist experience (pictured) we had access to today.
Your bodily position is tracked too, and this is crucial for locating the all-important pistol - it's hidden in a bottom drawer, requiring you to lean down and open it. As a full-on firefight breaks around you, attempting to return fire proves fruitless: the gun is not loaded. Not to worry though, you simply grab a spare magazine with your spare hand and physically load itbefore returning fire. Ammo is limited per clip requiring you to grab surplus mags and reload. Gunplay feels good, and accurate but the height of the experience is short-lived. The demo ends prematurely with a 'to be continued' message, leaving you hungry for more.
The demo is short and sweet but does enough to demonstrate that PlayStation 4 has the power to create a visually detailed experience while maintaining a coherent stereoscopic image at a sufficiently high frame-rate. It feels as if it has the quality to work as a full game, though beyond the confines of the demo you do have to wonder whether it would work as anything other than an on-rails experience.
It also serves to remind us that while Sony has - quite rightly - aimed for high frame-rates and fast response, we are still dealing with a 1080p image, which remains just as soft as it did on the prototype. The right trades have been made though. The lack of clarity doesn't detract from the quality of the overall experience, and obvious image quality artefacts - like edge-aliasing for example - are relatively slight. We spotted some minor jaggies on the shoulders of our captor, but that was it.
Secondly, the Heist demo emphasises the importance of PlayStation Move as an intuitive way to interact with the game world. While we didn't have access to the other three demos Sony has brought to GDC (we'll be looking at those later in the week), our prior experience of Morpheus demos using a standard Dual Shock 4 pad just isn't in the same league. What's really impressive about the London Heist demo is that interaction with the game world is intuitive - and obvious. There are no visual cues about where to find the gun, or how to load it - doing so is simply second nature. In the process, it feels fresh and exciting.
As a taste of what is to come when Morpheus arrives as a retail product in the first half of 2016, the London Heist demo is mouthwatering. What we have here is a carefully crafted experience with full console-level production values, working in combination with highly impressive hardware. Sony has brought three more demos to GDC that we'll be sampling later in the week - including a full 120fps experience - and we can't wait to try them out.
Digital Foundry: Hands-on with Sony's near-final Project Morpheus
By Richard Leadbetter Published 04/03/2015
You're probably fully aware of the revised spec for the Project Morpheus development kit by now, said to closely resemble the capabilities of the final model: a native 1080p display is in place with full RGB sub-pixel precision, OLED display technology is a lock, with a phenomenal 120Hz refresh confirmed. The spec is highly impressive on paper, but how does it feel once the visor is lowered into place?
We can safely say that it's a significant improvement over the already impressive developer HMD we've already tested. Looking beyond the raw spec, at the more practical level, Sony's designers have created a significant milestone in crafting a lightweight headset, the redesigned strap not placing any significant pressure on your face, distributing and balancing weight between the forehead and the back of your skull. It feels comfortable to wear, and we're curious to see how it holds up for extended periods.
The visor slots into place nicely - there's a button on the right of the underside that you hold down in order to move the display towards or away from your face. On a practical level, it works in setting yourself up for the best possible immersion offered by the kit, and it doubles up as means by which you can temporarily move the display away to orientate yourself in the environment. We're also happy to report that Sony has solved the troublesome 'glasses issue' - as a wearer of spectacles myself, there were no problems whatsoever with the HMD clashing with my eyewear. Also worthy of note is that no form of calibration is required - once the visor is comfortably in place, everything just works.
While it's been a while since we tested the older LCD model, we spotted two clear improvements over the initial prototype. Firstly, the enhanced field of view creates a more potent form of immersion - the black 'borders' that framed the left and right of the image previously are still there, but significantly reduced and now in peripheral vision. Secondly, and perhaps more crucially, image quality is also improved. It's not a revelatory change - the previous model also featured a full 1080p RGB display - but the motion blur is significantly reduced thanks to the lower persistence of the new, larger 5.7-inch OLED display.
PreviousNextView all
1/5 'In the flesh' photography of the revised Project Morpheus prototype, which Sony says closely resembles the final retail product due in 2016.
We only played the one demo - London Studio's Heist - and it allowed us to sample what is going to be a crucial element of the Morpheus SDK. The demo itself is visually rich, apparently running at 60fps, but the PS4 uses a form of frame-rate upscaling that Sony calls reprojection in order to give the illusion of a higher frame-rate. The idea is that midway between rendering each native image, the PS4 interpolates an intermediate frame based on revised motion data fed to the console from the HMD. Right now we'd say that the jury's out on the technology - it didn't exactly feel as though it was running at a significantly higher frame-rate and indeed, at some points it felt that the 60fps target wasn't adhered to. However, even if we're not quite dealing with super-slick perfection, the quality of the immersion is absolutely remarkable. This is VR that not only works but leaves a lasting impression. An hour on from the hands-on session and I'm still excited about it.
The demo begins with your avatar tied to a chair, facing interrogation from a hardman character in the Vinnie Jones mode. Stationary in the chair, there's not much you can do other than let the story play out, and allow your captor to blow smoke in your face - an interesting experience in stereoscopic 3D. However, as the interrogation continues, your gaze naturally wanders - you can look around the room in full 360 degrees across all axes. That's when the feeling of immersion really hits home. It's about acclimatising to your place in the virtual world.
It's not long before you're out of your seat, and exploring the environment, starting off with a quick tutorial on interaction with the game world via dual PlayStation Move controllers - one for each hand. Just like the castle demo we previously tested, Move is tracked in the real world, projecting your hands into the virtual environment. The Move triggers allow you to grasp anything you like - principally drawers you can open, and objects you can grab, hold in your hands, drop or throw.
Sony's Shuhei Yoshida reveals the four GDC 2015 demos we'll playing over the next few days, including the London Heist experience (pictured) we had access to today.
Your bodily position is tracked too, and this is crucial for locating the all-important pistol - it's hidden in a bottom drawer, requiring you to lean down and open it. As a full-on firefight breaks around you, attempting to return fire proves fruitless: the gun is not loaded. Not to worry though, you simply grab a spare magazine with your spare hand and physically load itbefore returning fire. Ammo is limited per clip requiring you to grab surplus mags and reload. Gunplay feels good, and accurate but the height of the experience is short-lived. The demo ends prematurely with a 'to be continued' message, leaving you hungry for more.
The demo is short and sweet but does enough to demonstrate that PlayStation 4 has the power to create a visually detailed experience while maintaining a coherent stereoscopic image at a sufficiently high frame-rate. It feels as if it has the quality to work as a full game, though beyond the confines of the demo you do have to wonder whether it would work as anything other than an on-rails experience.
It also serves to remind us that while Sony has - quite rightly - aimed for high frame-rates and fast response, we are still dealing with a 1080p image, which remains just as soft as it did on the prototype. The right trades have been made though. The lack of clarity doesn't detract from the quality of the overall experience, and obvious image quality artefacts - like edge-aliasing for example - are relatively slight. We spotted some minor jaggies on the shoulders of our captor, but that was it.
Secondly, the Heist demo emphasises the importance of PlayStation Move as an intuitive way to interact with the game world. While we didn't have access to the other three demos Sony has brought to GDC (we'll be looking at those later in the week), our prior experience of Morpheus demos using a standard Dual Shock 4 pad just isn't in the same league. What's really impressive about the London Heist demo is that interaction with the game world is intuitive - and obvious. There are no visual cues about where to find the gun, or how to load it - doing so is simply second nature. In the process, it feels fresh and exciting.
As a taste of what is to come when Morpheus arrives as a retail product in the first half of 2016, the London Heist demo is mouthwatering. What we have here is a carefully crafted experience with full console-level production values, working in combination with highly impressive hardware. Sony has brought three more demos to GDC that we'll be sampling later in the week - including a full 120fps experience - and we can't wait to try them out.
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Basically it looks like it's doing frame rate smoothing like a TV does. You're correct in questioning that.
You have to be kidding, right? Why would they price a game console peripheral HIGHER than the actual platform? It would never sell. LoL! C'mon man, think logical. By Sony being a hardware company, they have an advantage that a non hardware competitor would have trouble competing.
The headset is pretty basic for the most part, and the PS4 is doing a lot of the heavy lifting. Fast forward to 2016 and a lot of the specs it currently have will be much cheaper than they are now -- similar to the Vita. I think $200 will be the very most it would cost
It was tongue in cheek but this is Sony, the company know for overpricing everything. The PS4 was the exception to this.
That's because they learned a valuable lesson from last gen.
But anyhow, this thing is very basic for the most part. Its sort of like a dumb down Vita that straps to your head.
As best as I can make out Morpheus and Oculus Rift are pretty much the same. Oculus rift DK2 is currently $350. Lets also not orget that Morpheus needs the Playstation Camera, which needs to be included in the box. That is $50 on its own.
I think $300 is the reasonable expectation. Expecting $200 is likely going to leave you disappointed.
is this really where gamers want innovation directed? I'm really not sold on vr.
God knows we'll just play another 10 years of standard fps in 3d if it takes off. (excluding portal).
God knows we'll just play another 10 years of standard fps in 3d if it takes off. (excluding portal).
