Sony Corp plans on putting its virtual-reality (VR) headset on the market next year.
The gaming and electronics company on Tuesday announced at the Game Developers Conference (GDC) in San Francisco that its VR system, nicknamed Project Morpheus, will debut in the first half of next year.
VR technology utilizes a head-mounted display in concert with head-tracking capabilities to transport wearers’ to virtual worlds.
Photo: Bloomberg
Oculus VR, which Facebook Inc bought for US$2 billion last year, is returning to GDC this year with several talks about how developers can craft games for its VR platform. Oculus has yet to reveal when its Oculus Rift headset will be available to consumers.
Sony originally unveiled a prototype of the headset at last year’s gathering of video game developers. The headset works with Sony’s PlayStation 4 console and camera by covering users’ vision and simulating virtual worlds on screen.
The company flaunted an updated version of the VR headset prototype at Tuesday’s event. While it largely resembles the prototype introduced last year, the new version redistributes weight toward the back of the user’s head and features a screen that can slide back and forth to accommodate eyeglasses.
The new prototype also features a larger, 14.5cm OLED screen that displays nearly a 100o field of view and is capable of rendering imagery at up to 120 frames per second. There are nine LED lights on the headset’s exterior that are to track movement.
No price was announced.
“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,” Sony Computer Entertainment Worldwide Studios president Shuhei Yoshida said. “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.”
The company showed off the new prototype on Tuesday with four technical demonstrations, including a game that utilized a pair of PlayStation Move controllers to simulate a shootout inside a lavish building in London and a more passive presentation that featured tiny robots responding to users’ movements.
Sony is among the hardware makers jockeying for a piece of the VR market, which has attracted billions of dollars of investment from Google Inc, Oculus, game publisher Valve Corp and accessory maker Razer Inc.
HTC Corp (宏達電) and Valve announced plans on Sunday to release a Vive headset prototype for developers this spring and a consumer edition sometime later this year.
Their VR system works with exterior base stations to track users’ movements in spaces up to 4.6m by 4.6m, HTC said.
To turn VR into a meaningful part of the US$71 billion video-game industry, Sony and other hardware manufacturers must attract companies to develop games and movie-like experiences. They are wooing developers this week at the GDC event, which runs through tomorrow at San Francisco’s Moscone Center.
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