“Virtual Reality is going to be pervasive, and what I mean by that is it’s going to be used for all sorts of things you might not think it would be used for”. That is a quote from Richard Marks, Sony Magic Lab pioneer, who joined president Shuhei Yoshida on stage at the Game Developers Conference (GDC) 2014. Sony’s event was titled “Driving the Future of Innovation”. The point of the presentation was to explain Sony’s upcoming plans for virtual reality technology on the PlayStation 4, and no one is more excited than gamers like Yoshida, who have been dreaming of VR becoming operable. While imagining the gaming community being involved in VR, “nothing delivers a feeling of immersion better”, said Marks.

 
Sony has actually had this on its mind for a while now. It first released its “personal 3D viewer”, a VR set for watching movies, back in August of 2011. Tuesday, the Sony Corp unveiled a prototype for what they will call “Project Morpheus”, virtual reality for PlayStation fans. Virtual reality, in brief, is a truly immersive reality projecting experience, where every image is in front of their eyes; also shifting to the movement of the user’s head. Sony Entertainment has actually been messing with the Project Morpheus project since 2010. It finally turned into truth thanks to the encouragement, and “enthusiastic response” of other such prototypes; the (now well-known) Oculus Rift being the biggest in popularity thus far.

 
The headset features an adjustable, 1080p resolution head-mounted display, with a 90-degree field of view. Built-in sensors track the movement of the head in accordance to a PS4 camera. Obviously this is at prototype mode, and by no means is ready to distribute. However, if the current version were to be utilized, it would have to be attached to your PS4 with a 15 foot long cord, then virtual perspectives would be represented on your television screen. Not what it’s going to become, yet the entire idea is still intact. Marks stated, “If we can nail these experiences, virtual reality can be a mass-market industry”. I by no means doubt this statement, especially with the current uproar regarding the Oculus and other VR headsets that demonstrate gaming and visual experiences no one at-home has ever been able to achieve. Sony’s own researchers “have been excited and inspired by Oculus’s work”.

 
So far, Sony is working on adapting both tracking and control. Without tracking, the system wouldn’t be able to follow your movements. The word “parallax” refers to the feeling of “presence”, something essential for feeling inside of a game. Additionally, the PlayStation Move gesture controller will work with Morpheus to guide and control the camera; a tactic which will create the natural feeling of being inside the game. If the system ends up being as easy-to-use as Marks hopes for, mass adoption of the technology would be next. After unveiling Project Morpheus at the GDC, Sony intends for developers to begin making games for the system now! Current partners include Unity, Gigantic, Havok, Autodesk, DDD, Silicon Studio, Epic Games, and more.