Sony Announces Virtual Reality Headset For PS4

An anonymous reader writes "Sony has announced 'Project Morpheus,' their project to develop a virtual reality headset for use with the PlayStation 4. 'Using a combination of Sony's own hardware, combining personal video viewers with PlayStation Move controllers, PlayStation engineers experimented with multiple prototypes.' They've been working on it for over three years — here's a picture of the current incarnation. The headset will use 3D audio tech that changes as players move their heads. One of their big goals is to make it extremely simple to use. They intend the display to be 1080p with a 90-degree field of view."

Comments

After seven years you know what I've realized?

[Anonymous Coward]

Ignorance is bliss.

Re:After seven years you know what I've realized?

[ArcadeMan]

I have no idea what you're talking about.

Re:After seven years you know what I've realized?

[DigiShaman]

It's a quote from The Matrix. The name 'Morpheus' should have clued in the idiots that modded this down.

Cypher: You know, I know this steak doesn't exist. I know that when I put it in my mouth, the Matrix is telling my brain that it is juicy and delicious. After nine years, you know what I realize?
[Takes a bite of steak]
Cypher: Ignorance is bliss.

Hodor

[Anonymous Coward]

Hodor.

Nope.

[Anonymous Coward]

Not only is the PS4 not powerful enough to drive VR properly(probably 1080p 30FPS.. ugh..), but 90 FOV is a joke for VR and will more than likely cause headaches in quite a few people.

Re:Nope.

[Brad1138]

Are you serious? The PS4 has nearly 2 teraflops of computational power. 1080P at 30FPS... a 5 year old Computer/video-card can do that.

Re:Nope.

[Anonymous Coward]

Nearly 1 gigaflop per core.

FTFY.

Re:Nope.

[Anonymous Coward]

and yet their star games had to sacrifise resolution and framerate in order to run on the ps4. So do Sony developers just suck or is it the low end CPU and midrange GPU they have it that causes the issues?

Re:Nope.

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh please, we all know that's not true. There are no "star games" on the PS4. Hell, there are barely any GAMES on the PS4.

(No, seriously, this is the first I've heard of that simply because this is probably the first I've heard about anyone doing anything with the PS4 at all. Certainly couldn't name a single game for it!)

Re:Nope.

[Anonymous Coward]

The CPU in the ps4 would probably struggle against a top end 5 year old CPU, and the GPU is only a mid ranged card. they had to make a lot of compromises in performance to keep the cost down.

Re:Nope.

[wonkey_monkey]

(probably 1080p 30FPS.. ugh..)

This is the decision of game designers who choose effects over framerate. The PS4 is perfectly capable of delivering 1080p at 60fps, or 2160p at 120fps*, subject to a reduced graphics budget, but none of them seem to want to go that way these days.

*by which I mean, it could calculate the values of 8.2 million pixels 120 times a second - other technical qualifications notwithstanding

Re:Nope.

[wonkey_monkey]

and yet their star games had to sacrifise resolution and framerate in order to run on the ps4

No, they didn't have to. The fact is, no matter how powerful the console, you can always chuck in more effects and more realistic asplosions by reducing the framerate and resolution to a (debatably) acceptable minimum.

Re:Nope.

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, sure it does. It uses a low end, low power quad-core AMD CPU. That thing isn't even as powerful as a Celeron.

Re:Nope.

[Sockatume]

VR gives you a low angular resolution because your "screen" is spread over a wider field, which lets you get away with that reduced graphics budget. So a fringe benefit of VR might be games with a mode that gives you fewer shinies but a consistent, high framerate for a change.

Watch It Succeed

[TrollstonButterbeans]

Most gut instinct thoughts of this can think of 8-9 good reasons to not have faith in Sony's ability to do this.

But this gut instinct thought Facebook would be gone years ago, that the Wii would fail in the previous console generation and that Microsoft Office would have been made irrelevant years ago.

Sony has plenty of experience and desire to succeed in this area and is good at hardware and programming specs --- and this is exactly the kind of technology they could probably "get right" and have plenty of motivation to want to do it.

Re:Watch It Succeed

[bloodhawk]

It is very questionable though whether the ps4 has the horsepower to run such a device. The choices to use such low end CPU and mid range graphics card make me highly doubtful they could produce such a headset without it being incredibly expensive due to the requirements to add processing capabilities to the device. ps4 struggles with 1080p to a TV, some games like Killzone don't even run at 1080p due to it not being powerful enough to handle it and that is supposedly one of their premium flagship games.

Re:Watch It Succeed

[MoonlessNights]

I am not sure what more processing capability would be required, though.

Presumably (and this might be nonsense since I have never used the system), they already determine what sound goes into each channel based on the location and orientation of the view of the player (this is old-hat OpenAL stuff). Determining the orientation is done via the analog input of the controller so really they just need to convert the gyroscope data of the headset into the orientation language used by their input system. Other than that, it should just be a matter of running the video and audio to the headset, as opposed to the TV.

The hard part with this is typically just in building the hardware light enough that it doesn't cause neck strain in the user.

If they are trying to build stereoscopic 1080p, then you have the difficulty of rendering the scene twice (well, 2x over the normal number of render passes) and then reading out from 2 framebuffers. That is mostly a question of memory bandwidth in the GPU, though, and how their display controllers arbitrate the bus.

Re:Watch It Succeed

[bloodhawk]

that is the point though. their GPU/CPU combination doesn't have the raw horsepower for a single 1080p screen without making sacrifices somewhere. How are they supposed to run 2x1080p screens while also performing the processing required for the VR and for the game. something has to be sacrificed somewhere, either framerate, resolution or what you can actually do computationally within a game or they need more external processing capacity. I will be interesting to see what choices they have made.

Re: Watch It Succeed

[Anonymous Coward]

I can see you know very little about what the PS4 can and can't do.

First off hardware is not the only factor that enables the process of frame rendering as it is only one part of the equation.

Take a game like Killzone which is native 1080 at 60 fps when being played off line (campaign mode) it has no problem putting out the correct picture ratio.

But when you take the same game online (multi player) the scenario changes as now it is rendering information and feeding it to servers that have to mirror every single console connected for that game session.

It is at that moment the the game suffers with frame drop and resolution which is corrected by a process know as upscalling which was originally native 1080p but upscale to correct lost data.

To simplify it for you try playing a 1080p file on your computer of your hardrive and then take that same file and stream it from another room and tell me what happens.

Re:Watch It Succeed

[exomondo]

If they are trying to build stereoscopic 1080p, then you have the difficulty of rendering the scene twice (well, 2x over the normal number of render passes) and then reading out from 2 framebuffers. That is mostly a question of memory bandwidth in the GPU, though, and how their display controllers arbitrate the bus.

How is rendering the scene twice mostly a question of memory bandwidth? Increasing the memory bandwidth alone generally won't do much to increase your ability to render the scene, the limitation here is primarily the amount of ALUs on the GPU not memory bandwidth.

Re: Watch It Succeed

[Anonymous Coward]

I can see you know very little about what the PS4 can and can't do

Oh the Irony! Killzone had to use tricks because the additional information was too much for the CPU/GPU to be able to render the full native screens. campaign modes are far more predictable and allow for a lot more prerendering. FYI, I stream all my 1080p content from my central server in my house every day, it makes NO DIFFERENCE as to whether the source is local or remote, what makes a difference in multi player is the lack of predictability in what will need to be displayed. PC's have no trouble whatsoever rendering online multiplayer games in 1080p or above at 60fps or above with correct hardware choices. Sadly Sony decided to go cheap on the CPU and GPU and are paying the price.

Re:Watch It Succeed

[gl4ss]

huh?

if they can get 1080p per eye and 90 degrees then I'm buying this the second it goes into the shop. and buy a ps4 to use it with too.

and sony has plenty of experience with head mounted displays, but the previous consumer display was for viewing movies(and did not have a high fov, the hmz).

but heck, ANYBODY who creates oculus rift style display with about same fov as rift and 1080p per eye gets my money(as long as it's under a thousand bucks. maybe even 1.5). it's just so fucking cool(I got the dev oculus.. and if it had higher res, I would use it for viewing movies and maybe even desktop, in addition to gaming).

Re:Watch It Succeed

[MoonlessNights]

What is "processing required for the VR"? Beyond the question of whether or not they need to render a second frame for the other eye (or if they are just going to show the one scene to both eyes), what else is required?

The big question seems to be whether or not the device will be light enough and whether or not they can build it economically.

The most peculiar thing which comes to my mind is why they want 1080 at such a proximity that the eye is unlikely to see such high resolution.

Re:Watch It Succeed

[MoonlessNights]

On one level, it depends on their memory topology (how many components are fighting over that particular memory bus - this _should_ be pretty good in a game console).

In general, rendering a large scene takes immense memory bandwidth as the data required to describe the scene (GL commands, texture data, other data for shaders, etc) and the representation of the output (framebuffer, other pixel buffers, etc) are very large.

Then again, my main background in this area is working with compositors (where bandwidth was the limiting factor - in both texture upload and frame composite), so this data profile might push all the limits into direct computation.

In any case, if you are limited purely by computation, it is just a numbers game to see what (if any) trade-off would be required to get the second framebuffer for a given game.

Re: Watch It Succeed

[LocalH]

I know this is possible with other devices as well, but I can stream 1080p content directly from my computer to my iPad and given that the total bitrate doesn't exceed my network capacity, there is no re-encoding.

Re: Watch It Succeed

[Anonymous Coward]

To simplify it for you try playing a 1080p file on your computer of your hardrive and then take that same file and stream it from another room and tell me what happens.

WTF? you have no clue what you are talking about. the images are not streamed to the console in multi player, just co-ordinates and basic user actions which are then all rendered LOCALLY. why multi player is harder is that the information is far more unpredictable and requires good CPU and GPU to be able to adequately keep up with the constant calculations, when your CPU or GPU isn't powerful enough (which is the case for ps4) then you need to start either using rendering tricks to avoid the tearing and jaggies you would get due to the hardware simply not being able to keep up with the rendering demands. ALL of the graphics are rendered and created on the machine itself.

Re:Watch It Succeed

[Anonymous Coward]

and that Microsoft Office would have been made irrelevant years ago.

Don't worry, it was. It, Microsoft and most people just don't realise it yet.

Re:Watch It Succeed

[wonkey_monkey]

ps4 struggles with 1080p to a TV

No it doesn't, at least not inherently.

some games like Killzone don't even run at 1080p due to it not being powerful enough to handle it

That was the game developer's choice. If the PS4 was twice as powerful, they'd have just thrown in twice as many* effects and explosions and it would still run at 720p and 30fps.

*yes, I know, it doesn't really scale that way.

Re:Watch It Succeed

[Anonymous Coward]

It's a screen and a gyro, it doesn't need processing capabilities on the device; PS4 is easily capable of driving it. Low-end CPU? What planet are you on? It's 2x as powerful as the nearest console competitor and faster than any single-GPU gaming rig that's more than a year old. Dollar for dollar it outperforms everything.

Killzone is a launch title, they ported a PS3 game, turned the reflection mapping up, and called it a product. You shouldn't be wondering what the crappy low-end VR shovelware will look like on PS4, you should be wondering what Naughty Dog will do with this hardware.

(As to your lower comment, all games make sacrifices, that's what makes them games and not offline renderers. Why it works so well on consoles is that the hardware's performance is exactly known so you can tune to it - doesn't happen in launch titles too much, though. Clearly VR games will make sacrifices on all platforms compared to TV/monitor games; you have to keep the framerate up at all costs so the graphics will always be one generation behind the 2D games. Why are people expecting Oculus Rift to magically solve this fundamental & inescapable problem?)

Re:Watch It Succeed

[del_diablo]

You sacrifice shaders that has too many passes or other things that has become the standard.

Re:Watch It Succeed

[Anonymous Coward]

"ps4 struggles with 1080p to a TV, some games like Killzone don't even run at 1080p due to blah blah blah.."

That's not how it works. Did you ever consider how much work the ps4 has to do on average to calculate the color of just a single pixel in a game like killzone?
If you ever heared of the term 'shader' you would have known that games these past years run whole (admittedly small) programs for every single pixel that you see on screen. There is more than enough horsepower there to do the two camera's needed for stereo vision.
In the end, how many pixels a gpu can draw is very much related to ow complex the shaders are made. More complex shaders means more pretty pixels. But stuff like resolution and framerate can easily scale by reducing the complexity of the shaders.
So your statement that the ps4 (or any device with a modern gpu) struggles with 1080p is a delusion instantiated by game designers choice to trade off shader quality for resolution or framerate. It is a design choice and apparently the marketing department decided that people want pretty pixels more that a higher resolution or steady framerate. It has absolutely nothing to do with the devices 'not being powerful enough to handle it'. Stop deluding yourself.

Re:Watch It Succeed

[GuitarNeophyte]

My first thought seems to be opposite of most of the people I've seen post on this. Everyone keeps pointing out that it would be hard for the PS4 to be able to produce the desired effect due to the technical specifications of the console. I haven't been following the PS* close enough to comment on this, but I have been checking in on the VR headset scene on and off for quite some time. The technologies have been coming for years and years, and many gaming rigs have multiple-monitor capability (for stereoscopic potential), so it seems to me that if there was a potential market for this type of game, we would have seen a more public attempt at it in PC games by now. As it is, the widest-spreading VR item I've seen was that weird, red-lines VR mobile platform that Nintendo put out a while back. And that was a very niche item.

TL;DR -- I don't know if the tech is powerful enough, but I just don't think there's enough market for the thing.

Re:Watch It Succeed

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm getting the impression that you're not aware of the Oculus Rift. You should look it up, it's looking like a really strong contender for a proper gaming HMD for the PC.

Re:Watch It Succeed

[GuitarNeophyte]

Wow, thank you very much. I stand completely corrected. I remember seeing something early about it last year, but I hadn't realized how far it had come. Thanks a lot!

Re:Watch It Succeed

[Jmc23]

Neck strain isn't a problem for normal people who can balance their heads over their bodies.

Geeks with glasses whose heads are suspended in front of their body...

Re:Watch It Succeed

[JohnNemesh]

LOL, so true!

Re:Watch It Succeed

[Amtrak]

I know riling up fan boys is bad tact and all but seriously:

It's 2x as powerful as the nearest console competitor and faster than any single-GPU gaming rig that's more than a year old. Dollar for dollar it outperforms everything.

Care to put the PS4 up against my computer with it's single overclocked GTX 680. I'll eat my hat if a PS4 gets better framerates than I do on the same resolution and graphics settings and my computer has to deal with the bloat that is M$ windows, a TS server, and a web server running in the background.

I won't argue with the dollar vs dollar argument though. For what I paid to build my watercooled monster of a computer in 2012 I could have bought 3 PS4's but when you need an Intel i7 3930K CPU because you use your computer for real work the cost difference isn't that important.

Re:Watch It Succeed

[exomondo]

In general, rendering a large scene takes immense memory bandwidth as the data required to describe the scene (GL commands, texture data, other data for shaders, etc) and the representation of the output (framebuffer, other pixel buffers, etc) are very large.

You should have pretty much all of that uploaded to the GPU anyway, you aren't going to go and do it all again just to render the second frame of the same scene.

you've got to be kidding me!

[slashmydots]

A piece of hardware like this on a closed console with an insane level of controls and fees? No ability to run arbitrary code to make third party apps and mods for it? The hardware in the brand new PS4 is a joke compared to a real computer. It's so limited by a massive variety of factors! Put it on the PC or it will flop.

Re:you've got to be kidding me!

[Anonymous Coward]

A piece of hardware like this on a closed console with an insane level of controls and fees? No ability to run arbitrary code to make third party apps and mods for it? The hardware in the brand new PS4 is a joke compared to a real computer. It's so limited by a massive variety of factors! Put it on the PC or it will flop.

Standard geek response to something like this, same as there was to Kinect. Even if it is locked down nobody except tweakers care about that (see: the success of iOS devices and locked down Android devices). You can make 3rd party apps using the PS4 indie dev kit. PC will have the occulus rift - you can even get dev kits for it today if you want - so all this complaining of "locked down" is pointless because it's complaining for the sake of complaining, if you really had some reason for it not be locked down you would have already produced something for occulus. Why should they open it up? Why are you so desperate to get them to succeed when there is already a product targeted at your needs? It's Sony, what's your vested interest in them not failing with this?

Same problem as all VR headsets ...

[Frag-A-Muffin]

Looks like it'll be annoying to wear for long (5+ min.) durations.

Re:Same problem as all VR headsets ...

[Osgeld]

aye, strap a brick to your head where it hangs out 4-6 inches from your face and rests on the bridge of your nose, if that doesnt get you the eye strain of faked streoscopic vision and the refresh rate will

Re:Same problem as all VR headsets ...

[pitchpipe]

Aye, strap a patch to your head where your eye previously hung out 4-6 inches from your face and rested on the bridge of your nose, if that doesnt get you the eye strain of faked streoscopic vision and the refresh rate will. Arrr matey.

Re:Same problem as all VR headsets ...

[Jmc23]

seems geeks have never heard of counter-balances. Sad.

Re:Same problem as all VR headsets ...

[Sockatume]

It doesn't rest on your nose. Sony's been doing HMDs for a while, they design around a padded headband that puts the load up top instead.

It's not "faked stereoscopic vision" when you have one viewpoint for each eye, that's literally the entirety of stereoscopy.

Re:Same problem as all VR headsets ...

[Osgeld]

what counterweight, the current incarnation has a open back, seems like the whole idea of a counterweight falls flat when there is no counterside to the weight, and none ever made or currently being presented have a counterweight.

sorry if I am pointing out the obvious, but I am not the one designing and trying to sell the things

Re:Same problem as all VR headsets ...

[Osgeld]

yes just like watching a TV is identical to seeing it in real life

Re:Same problem as all VR headsets ...

[Jmc23]

No, geeks are and they seem to have never heard of counter-balances.

Sorry for pointing out the obvious, i.e., exactly what I said the first time.

going to be terrible

[locopuyo]

Most PS4 games are rendered in sub 1080p resolution and scaled, some games run at 60 fps but often they run at 30 fps, and the fov in most games is 70 degrees or even less.

The Oculus Rift guys are pushing for 120+ fps, 1080p+ resolution, and 105 degree fov.

The Oculus guys did their research and found that all of this is required for a good experience. The PS4 hardware can't come close to meeting any of those requirements and their headset is going to be a terrible experience and just make people think all VR headsets are terrible.

Some big management guys at Sony are pushing for a VR Headset because it is going to be the next big thing, but they don't understand any of the technical details and it is just going to fail.

Re:going to be terrible

[Anonymous Coward]

most likely games targeting this headset won't be made to run 30 hz then...

Re:going to be terrible

[Anonymous Coward]

Just like the technically superior Betamax beat the VHS? Or how those fancy LaserDisc things beat the CD? Or more recently, the PlayStation 3 beat the Wii?

And of course, it could also go the way of the Virtual Boy, I have no idea.

But the point is, there are myriad factors at play and predictions don't really mean anything.

Re:going to be terrible

[HalAtWork]

I'm sure there will be games made specifically for it that will have an appropriate detail level for achieving 1080p/60fps. Most games on PS4 aren't upscaled, I think you mean the Xbox One.

Re:going to be terrible

[Anonymous Coward]

You forgot the main criterion Sony is betting on: People have no standards nowadays, just look at the terribly bugged and completely untested mess being passed as games, and still consumers gobble on it like it's some form of ambrosia.

Re:going to be terrible

[am 2k]

The difference is, the CD, Wii and VHS didn't make people sick, while a bad VR experience does.

All of these three products aren't great, but they're good enough. In VR, even the Oculus Rift doesn't reach the good enough level (yet), and this is even worse.

Re:going to be terrible

[citizenr]

Sure it can, but it means games with simple geometry and not a lot of content on the screen at the same time.

Re:going to be terrible

[Anonymous Coward]

You're talking complete shit. Most PS4 games come in at 1080p, most games run at 30FPS because that's the target for TV, and the FOV in a game is just a float variable so why would you think that was even relevant?

The Oculus Rift guys have a project to produce a VR headset, and so does Sony. They are all capable of doing research, and none of the suits at either company understand the technical details, so why would you think that was relevant either?

Meanwhile you have no understanding of the technical details yourself if you think FOV, frame rate and screen res is some hardcoded property of the console hardware. I guess you're just being a dick for the sake of it. Microsoft fanboi perhaps?

Re:going to be terrible

[AdamColley]

The 3DS is shite and is still selling in some numbers.

So will this.

It doesn't have to be perfect, it just has to work.

(Am I the only person who on seeing this thought "Hrm, a potentially cheaper than all the others VR headset, how will I be able to hack this for PC use etc.?")

Also, those whining that the PS4 doesn't have enough horsepower to run it are clearly dumber than pond scum, the PS3 had enough horsepower to do it. You may need a little less detail, explosions/reflections etc. might be a tad less realistic but does it matter? Do you sit there pausing the game and criticising the graphics or actually play the damn thing, good lord.

Re:going to be terrible

[Sockatume]

This is actually a product of Sony's research labs, not "some big management guys", and as they outlined at the actual event, the prototype does something over a 90-degree FOV (105 is entirely possible) with 1080p resolution. The finished version will be somewhat better. Framerate will be decided by the software, not the hardware; you could write a PS4 game that ran at 120fps in 1080p quite easily if you weren't trying to make pretty screenshots with lots of pixel shaders, and the relatively low angular resolution of a VR display would support that.

Re:going to be terrible

[Sockatume]

A game's FOV and a display's FOV are two different things. You can literally change the former with one line of code.

Re:going to be terrible

[am 2k]

I think most people just turn off the 3D feature of the 3DS. Unlike a head-mounted display, it's a gimmick, not a completely new medium.

I agree on the horsepower-part, though. If people like playing Minecraft on the Rift, the PS4 shouldn't have any troubles from a technological point of view.

Re:going to be terrible

[aliquis]

Also wasn't the idea that the current gen would use 60 fps?

Maybe not / maybe that depends.

May it be that PS3 and 360 is 30 FPS and current gen more often 60 FPS and as you say more often around 1080p for the PS4 and less for the Xbox One.

As far as performance go I know a lot of people say that the design choices have limited performance and hence they can't get there wherever there it but the thing is that since they are designed as they are they can also take advantage of future evolution of the hardware so what say the next Playstation will be seven years from now? Why can't it just have a refresh in like 1-1,5 years time with a quicker APU but remain compatible with the old one?

Re: going to be terrible

[Anonymous Coward]

It doesn't have to be better than Oculous Rift to succeed, and you know it. Oculous Rift succeeding will likely bring Sony's headset up with it, being the best option for the entire console market... assuming MS don't have a brilliant plan up their sleeves.

Re:going to be terrible

[NotDrWho]

My understanding is that some people are inherently susceptible to VR sickness no matter how high the framerate or resolution that the display is at. Combine that with the people who will be sick and disoriented by the movement controls, and it's pretty clear that VR simply isn't for everyone. But there is, and will be, a market for it. Hell, there was a market for the Virtual Boy. And that thing was a complete headache-inducing piece of shit.

Re:going to be terrible

[organgtool]

(Am I the only person who on seeing this thought "Hrm, a potentially cheaper than all the others VR headset, how will I be able to hack this for PC use etc.?")

You think Sony is going to release a product that is cheaper than the competition? Good luck with that.

Also, those whining that the PS4 doesn't have enough horsepower to run it are clearly dumber than pond scum, the PS3 had enough horsepower to do it. You may need a little less detail, explosions/reflections etc. might be a tad less realistic but does it matter? Do you sit there pausing the game and criticising the graphics or actually play the damn thing, good lord.

In order to run at 1080p (which is a minimum requirement given the close proximity of the image to your eye) and 60 frames per second (30 fps for each eye) with two different stereoscopic images, the PS3 would be drastically underpowered. The PS4 is closer to having the necessary power, but I think you are missing something: in order to scale down the graphics enough to render the stereoscopic images at the required res and fps, the visual details would need to be turned way down. That may be acceptable if you commited the game for VR only, but if you want to make your game work without VR, your graphical detail would not be sufficient to be competitive with other non-VR games. At that point, you would need to optimize the game for two different platforms (VR and non-VR) on the same console. The game engine could automatically detect the display type and run the appropriate optimization profile, but the point is that the game developers would need to put in twice the effort on optimization.

Ultimately, if you're going to do VR, you have to do it right. We already went through one generation of crappy VR in the 90's and it failed miserably. I think we're on the verge of all of the technologies finally being affordable and portable enough to make a comfortable display, but it requires a smooth integration of many different technologies if it's going to create a realistic experience.

Re:going to be terrible

[RogueyWon]

The advantage that this has over the Oculus Rift is that, by the time it ships, it will work on a "plug in and play" basis with a mass-market games console which may quite reasonably have an installed base of 20 million+ by then. Sony basically "won" the BD vs HD-DVD battle by turning every PS3 into a BD player - this has some potential (though as I'll come onto, it's not guaranteed) to manage a similar victory over the Oculus Rift.

The big problem, of course, is that optional peripherals for consoles have a poor track record. Most of them vanish without trace. A few - Wii Balance Board and Kinnect - sell strongly at first but lose relevance quickly due to a lack of third party support. Developers target large installed bases and a "platform within a platform" can be a risky proposition.

I'm not 100% convinced that the exact specifications of resolution and framerate will be all that necessary. Terms like 1080p60 get bandied around a lot on forums, but I do wonder whether the average gamer really notices.

Re:going to be terrible

[Lord Lemur]

FOV certainly can be. If the screen is a fixed distance from the eye, it takes up a certain percentage of your FOV based on screen size.

Re:going to be terrible

[GameMaster]

Actually, reports from people that have used their most recent prototype ("crystal cove") seem to suggest that they've pretty much dealt with the issue of making people sick.

Re:going to be terrible

[Sockatume]

It's a property of the sensor, not the console. The post he's replying to argued that because console games run with a narrow FOV (an optimisation for a large but distant monitor) they couldn't possibly drive a wide-field-of-view output device. Which is just wrong.

Re:going to be terrible

[timeOday]

They would be smart to make the VR games entirely separate by requiring the VR, and not displaying to the TV (except some little "preview" window so it will be less weird for onlookers). The rendering horsepower required for 3d is part of it, but beyond that VR games will also need to be different in other ways, such as head/viewer motion allowed, reliance on depth perception, field of view, and certainly other stuff that I can't think of ahead of time, some of which will be particular to Sony's implementation and not VR in general.

It's like gamepad vs. keyboard/mouse. In some sense they are equivalent, but not really. The game needs to be designed for one or the other. Likewise, all games for which Kinect can be used, but is optional, are not worth using it on.

Re:going to be terrible

[Anonymous Coward]

The PS3 did not beat the Wii. The Wii sold 100 million units. The PS3 less than 80 million.

Re:going to be terrible

[Anonymous Coward]

Where in this case "simple" geometry is still higher fidelity than Doom 3, Half-Life 2, or UT2k4.

Re:going to be terrible

[Anonymous Coward]

I think these helmets would keep one a virgin for a long long time...

Re:going to be terrible

[locopuyo]

Actually most of the games for PS4 are too. For example Killzone uses interlacing and is only 960x1080 for each frame. Only half the resolution of real 1080p.

sony

[wiziwigtv]

yeah i have heared about that that is going to awesome

Re:sony

[exomondo]

Thankyou for that insight Sony Marketing team! Very valuable and useful information.

90 vrs 110

[ZombieBraintrust]

So off the bat the sony vr headset is lowered spec than the oculus dev kits. 90 degrees versus 110 degrees field of view. They are running at 1080p but so does some oculus prototypes. I would not be surprised if they were slower than the oculus as well. So it comes down to price and software. Also very interested in the demo tommorow. Hopefully someone with a dev kit can try one tell us how they compare.

Re:90 vrs 110

[Anonymous Coward]

Sony have to be able to attach it to the ps4. something with the resolution and FOV of Oculus Rift would be impossible on a piece of hardware as outdated as the ps4. So probably the best they can do, to be honest I am surprised they are able to even manage 1080p.

Re:90 vrs 110

[Anonymous Coward]

The PS4 only just came out, and it easily outperforms a $2,000 PC from 4 years ago, and most $1,000 PCs from last year. If you think the average gaming PC is higher spec than the PS4, you're an idiot. It's also twice as efficient as a PC, since it runs FreeBSD with the GPU mapped directly into userspace, instead of the Windows driver stack and the crappy Windows thread scheduler. It can easily cope with 1080p at 60Hz. Meanwhile the Rift is only using 120Hz as a hack because they can't figure out how to do temporal sampling properly.

Re:90 vrs 110

[Anonymous Coward]

fuck man you have been sucking sony's marketing cock way to hard. My core i7 is from 5 years ago and it shits all over the ps4 for raw performance and the graphics in it are about equivalent though I have more memory + dedicated graphics memory and more graphics bandwidth and I certainly consider it dated now considering their have been 3 gens of CPU since then and several gens of GPU. It also cost around $1500 not $2000. The ps4 is brand new and it is EASILY outperformed by fairly standard machines under $1000, let alone gaming rigs.

Re:90 vrs 110

[glasshole]

This AC squabble makes me feel like I've stepped into a reddit thread. I'm surprised nobody has referred to console gamers as 'peasants'.

Re:90 vrs 110

[Sockatume]

The FOV is decided by the lens they put in the eyepiece of the output device and a single variable in your graphics engine of choice. It's not a graphics performance issue.

Re:90 vrs 110

[Anonymous Coward]

LOL, now here's one for the peasant files. The PS4 more or less has the GPU equivalent to a Radeon 7870. If you think running FreeBSD somehow magically imparts magical performance to this chip that isn't possible from within Windows, thenyou really need to not be posting on /. Enjoy your potatostation.

Re:90 vrs 110

[bloodhawk]

A PC from 4 years ago at that price would be a top end i7 with a 5870 or better in it hmmmm I don't think a ps4 is going to outperform that. It is going to be similar on graphics but way behind on processor. If you have to resort to comparing to 4 year old tech and still fall short I think that is pretty fair justification to say the ps4 was outdated from the day it was released.

Re:90 vrs 110

[Quila]

Hold an iPhone maybe three inches from your eyes. That's about 90 degrees. It's not enough for VR. It would be like running around with blinders on.

They dont need the PC

[Anonymous Coward]

Put it on the PC or it will flop.

Right because the kinect was *so* much more popular on PC than it was on XBox ::rollseyes::

Why does Sony need to do this for you? They clearly have enough PS4 customers to make this successful.

Re:They dont need the PC

[Anonymous Coward]

Put it on the PC or it will flop.

Right because the kinect was *so* much more popular on PC than it was on XBox ::rollseyes::

Why does Sony need to do this for you? They clearly have enough PS4 customers to make this successful.

I doubt sales of a geeky looking helmet with a big price tag are going to take off.

Pay a lot of money to look like an ass playing video games?

Gamer's have a hard enough time getting pussy as it is.... This thing would be like virgin insurance.

Awesome???

[Quandell]

What could be awesome here? It's kinda awkward to wear it? You'll look like Robocop? Cyclops?

Re:Awesome???

[Anonymous Coward]

Where do they hide their Signature Sony Rootkit in something like this? They are crafty, those Sonys.

Re:Awesome???

[Jmc23]

Sheesh, fricken newbies. You're concerned about your looks while immersed in a 3d world???

Re:Awesome???

[JohnNemesh]

Go away, troll. The whole Sony rootkit deal was over a decade ago. Find something new.

Re:Awesome???

[JohnNemesh]

What does it matter what you look like when wearing it? You aren't going to be looking in a mirror when playing. Dumb comment.

Re:Awesome???

[Anonymous Coward]

Virgin alert! Virgin alert!

Sometimes you care about how you look, to others.... Just saying you may want to get out more and maybe experience some real stuff.

Limited FOV..what gives?

[Anonymous Coward]

"...They intend the display to be 1080p with a 90-degree field of view."

Am I missing something here? 90 degrees isn't exactly an accurate simulation of our normal FOV. HDTVs are capable of being viewed at almost 180 degrees.

This is a VR world...as seen through binoculars? Was there a point in that, or do we think we'll be happy walking into the holodeck one day wearing the mandatory eye patch?

Sorry, not trying to dog on the new tech here, just thought it would have been a bit more than that.

Re:Limited FOV..what gives?

[Jmc23]

Yes, you're missing the thinking part of your brain.

Viewing angle is not the same as visual angle or field of view. google is your friend.

It's not 1080p per eye, your story is wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

https://mobile.twitter.com/MarkRein/status/446168186694557696?screen_name=MarkRein

960x1080 per eye on a 1080p panel.

Re:It's not 1080p per eye, your story is wrong

[Sockatume]

It doesn't say that anywhere.

If they use the same hardware guys that produced..

[Assmasher]

..their other 'vr headsets' it will likely be total crap. SONY is an amazing company, but for some reason there are areas in which they simply produce garbage - this being one of them.

This doesn't mean it won't be a good device, just that SONY's history with VR headsets and tracking is terrible.

Let's hope it proves otherwise.

cheap designer handbags http://www.shoesctv.com

[kvcnmoui]

Hello! everybody, give you recommend a good shopping place. cheap sunglasses http://www.shoesctv.com/ NFL cap wholesale http://www.shoesctv.com/ designer handbags http://www.shoesctv.com/ cheap jordan shoes http://www.shoesctv.com/ designer sunglasses http://www.shoesctv.com/ handbags On Sale http://www.shoesctv.com/ all jordan shoes http://www.shoesctv.com/ jordans shoes http://www.shoesctv.com/ jordan store http://www.shoesctv.com/ michael jordan http://www.shoesctv.com/ Air jordan 13 http://www.shoesctv.com/ discount jordan shoes http://www.shoesctv.com/ cheap designer handbags http://www.shoesctv.com/ NBA cap wholesale http://www.shoesctv.com/ best handbags http://www.shoesctv.com/ cheap jordan http://www.shoesctv.com/ Jordan for cheap http://www.shoesctv.com/ Air jordan 11 http://www.shoesctv.com/ ray ban sunglasses http://www.shoesctv.com/ handbag store http://www.shoesctv.com/ handbag patterns http://www.shoesctv.com/ mens sunglasses http://www.shoesctv.com/ imitation handbags http://www.shoesctv.com/ replica rolex http://www.shoesctv.com/ jordan release dates http://www.shoesctv.com/ NHL cap wholesale http://www.shoesctv.com/ wholesale from china http://www.shoesctv.com/ Jordans For Sale http://www.shoesctv.com/ cheap designer handbag http://www.shoesctv.com/ designer handbags wholesale http://www.shoesctv.com/

Re: potentially cheaper

[jobyk.d]

If Sony cared about low price, wouldn't they just make the PS4 Oculus compatible? Seems pretty clear their headset is targeting a premium price for the specs. Will it support the current Killzone? No, because the devs didn't want to reduce the experience for users who don't own an optional headset. At least with PC you can just play top-of-the-line VR games on a lower-end machine if you don't want to pay for a headset. Imo optional VR is actually a disadvantage for the equality feature of consoles. I see it failing to the point that it reduces interest in VR for their PC competition.

This is good for the Rift

[Guspaz]

First is the obvious thing to note, Sony's solution is PS4-only, while the Rift will (at least initially) be PC-only. So they're not directly competing in that respect. But more importantly is that for developers, Sony's solution and Oculus' solution pose all the same problems. You need to figure out input, locomotion, figure out the rules of VR (what feels good and what doesn't), figure out what sort of gameplay works best...

The more developers there are working on VR content, the better the entire VR ecosystem gets. The biggest risk to Oculus in my mind has always been that they'd have trouble getting enough compelling content. Sony's involvement will help with that.

90 degrees horizontal?

[MobyDisk]

Why are VR headsets 90 degrees horizontal? humans can see close to 180 degrees horizontal. I thought FOV was one of the big benefits of VR headsets.

Re: 90 degrees horizontal?

[Anonymous Coward]

180 degrees horizontal would be behind you. I think by 90 degrees horizontal they mean to the right/left of your eye. Oculus is going for over 100 degrees because you can rotate your eyes left/right which enables you to see slightly beyond 90 degrees to your side.

Just doing a test, my eyes can see about 140 degrees horizontal if I turn my eyes so neither device gets true full vision

Re: 90 degrees horizontal?

[MobyDisk]

I think by 90 degrees horizontal they mean to the right/left of your eye.

Ahh, that makes more sense.

Final Fantasy XIV

[ArcadeMan]

I hope the upcoming PS4 version of Final Fantasy XIV will be compatible with the VR headset.

Re:Final Fantasy XIV

[Anonymous Coward]

So you can get a full 3D view of the too-young anime girls with too-short skirts?

Re:Final Fantasy XIV

[Anonymous Coward]

Just avoid brain microwaves and you and your waifu should be fine.

So many ignorant statements here...

[JohnNemesh]

So much ignorance needs to be addressed. First...Performance: The PS4 can display 1080p content at CONSISTENT high frame rates (60+) just fine. All the developers have to do is dial down things like shadows, physics, particle effects, or the polygon count. There are LOTS of factors that go into what your end results are, graphically. The reason the launch games perform the way they do is that developers are trying to push the hardware...dial back the fancy "whiz bang" effects a bit, and you will get better and more consistent frame rates, even at full 1080p resolution. This is why my PS3 can play "Wipeout HD" in 1080p/60fps and why the Xbox One can play Forza in 1080p/60fps, but more graphically intensive games, like Battlefield or COD take a resolution and frame rate hit. So, the PS4 is MOST DEFINITELY capable of driving a VR headset with good results. Second: Cost: Oculus managed to make a VR headset and market it successfully for $300. The Rift uses "off the shelf" components, too. Sony can source components a LOT less expensively than Oculus can, especially if they ramp up production into the millions. They can also make FROM SCRATCH any components needed, unlike Oculus, which has temporarily suspended production of the Rift due to lack of crucial components. I fully expect Sony to sell the VR headset for no more than $350...but it's possible it could be as low as $200 or $250. Let's say it is $350. You also will need a camera ($60) and a Move controller or 2. So, $400 for the console, $350 for the headset, $60 for the camera, and $100 for the controllers...And you end up with roughly $910 MSRP for a FULL VR system! This is an INSANELY good deal for a full VR system! Also, keep in mind that gamers wont necessarily have to have a TV...so the cost of the VR gear could be offset by not having the costs associated with buying a TV for your system as well. In any case, I feel that under $1000 for a VR system would be acceptable for many gamers, including myself. These will have NO problem selling. Third: Games and development I have read comments talking about how no one is developing anything for them, or that devs won't even have the tools for a while...well, what about the THOUSANDS of Oculus dev kits out there? There has ALREADY been tons of work done by game devs (and other developers) on VR over the past couple years. This work translates DIRECTLY to the PS4...as we can already see with the tech demos being shown today (EVE Valkyrie anyone?). Additionally, the ENTIRE industry is excited about the possibility of a mainstream VR system. It won't take the industry long to push out good content for a Sony system. Fourth: Competition with Oculus Some see this as a "zero sum" game, where if Sony is successful with "Morpheus", Oculus loses out. I don't think so. First, Oculus has stated that one of their primary goals is to spark VR development and mainstream acceptance. They have NO problem with Sony getting in the game. Second, Oculus is going after PCs and Android platforms, Sony is targeting the PS4...they are going to complement each other, not compete against one another here. Third, I wouldnt be surprised if Sony ends up providing parts or manufacturing capability for Oculus in the future...this is purely speculation on my part, but it would make a certain amount of sense to partner up. In short, I am VERY excited about this announcement, and I simply can not wait to see what the final product is like. I suggest the nay-sayers withhold judgement until they are able to TRY it, in person. Then they can comment with some knowledge instead of commenting out of ignorance (or worse, blatant fanboyism).

Re:So many ignorant statements here...

[Anonymous Coward]

The person who uses "blatant fanboyism" is usually the blatant fanboy...and judging by your breathless hyperbole, you are an absolute Sony Brony, bro.

Re: So many ignorant statements here...

[JohnNemesh]

At least I post under my real name, coward.

Re: So many ignorant statements here...

[Anonymous Coward]

Watch out, we got a badass over here.

Re: Yep.

[Mysticeti]

Carmack confirms PS4 is capable of VR resolution and framerate...

https://twitter.com/ID_AA_Carm...

I still think the PC will make a better platform but to each there own.

Visualization != VR

[Anonymous Coward]

May we please stop calling immersive visualization virtual reality?