Experiencing Project Morpheus: PS4’s Virtual Reality Prototype

Seeing Project Morpheus In Action Is out Of This World

March 21st, 2014, by Maya Mayfield

Project Morpheus is Sony Playstation's response to the Oculus Rift Virtual Reality system for PS4. It was announced earlier this week at the GDC 2014 event by SCE Worldwide President Shuhei Yoshida. Morpheus is a sleek looking eye candy piece of hardware that feels very comfortable on your head once you wear it. This surprising amount of comfort can be credited to its clever patented design that spreads most of the VR's headset weight to the top of your head, as opposed to other delicate pressure points like the bridge of your nose, or ears. Once the Morpheus Virtual Reality headset unit is properly fitted,  it seats firmly over your eyes, resting snugly on your face.

You look through two separate lenses, which combines into one super immersive high definition image that gives a sense of depth and dimension. In the demos we tested at the conference we were able to get a true sense of the power of Project Morpheus, blown away by the images before our very eyes. The first demo we tried was The Deep as we came face to face with a great white shark prowling the deep blue ocean.  Although we were safely within a shark cage. The experience was both amazing, if a little unnerving from the ultra realistic view of being so close to one of natures greatest sea predators. The second demo was EVE Valkyrie, a super fast paced out of space battle simulator that felt like a scene out of a Star Wars movie.

Out of the two demo's EVE Valkyrie was the most fun. The simple pick up and play gameplay thanks to the Dualshock 4 was what made it our top pick of the two demos. The left analog stick controlled the ships thrust, while pressing R2 will fire your lasers and L2 will deploy locked-on missiles. Having the freedom to navigate in 360, combined with the amazing sense of immersion, depth and dimension thanks to Morpheus is what made EVE Valkyrie such a thrilling experience.

There was no view restrictions as we were able to look up from the cockpit to view the heated battle commencing  above our head, or towards the left or right shoulder as enemy and ally ships flew past us. Looking down below we were shocked to discover our own body sitting in the space fighter plane holding the flight controls, filled with flashing dials of buttons far too complicated for us to understand the propose of each one. The sense of realism I experienced in that particular moment was so mind blowing that I almost had to stop for a  moment and re-adjust my mind to the fact that I wasn't actually in space flying a spaceship.

Project Morpheus also works with a variety of accessories like the Playstation Camera and the Playstation Move motion controller, which we were able to experience in the Castle demo via the bow and arrow equipment.

Project Morpheus PS4 Virtual Reality prototype headset was able to successfully trick our minds into believing what we saw in these two demo's was real.  It showed just how far technology has come in what we believe is by far the best virtual experience ever. Now it is up to developers to make full use of this technology. To create Virtual reality games that are not only jaw dropping gorgeous but also able to take players  to the next-generation of gaming.