Sony’s Project Morpheus delayed to 2016

As virtual reality was a pretty big conversation topic in the past couple of days at the MWC 2015 fair in Barcelona, Spain, we’ve got news about yet another virtual reality headset that has been in development for quite a while now: Project Morpheus. Project Morpheus belongs to Sony, as it is the company’s own take on a virtual reality headset, similar to the Samsung Gear VR, HTC Vive and Oculus Rift. Development on Project Morpheus has been ongoing for the past year, as Sony is playing catch-up with other companies who have already introduced their headsets. Consumer versions for the HTC Vive, or Oculus Rift are not yet available, so we can’t really say that Sony is behind. But the company has shown their gadget much less than others have, being very secretive about what the end version will be able to do.

Sony decided that it was time to show fans how much Project Morpheus has progressed over the past few months, and in consequence revealed a few specs and a new prototype of the virtual reality headset. It seems that the Japanese company is getting more focused on power-consumption, as the LCD screen seen on the previous development model has been replaced by an OLED display in the new version. The OLED display consumes a bit less power and has the ability of reproducing images of a higher quality, with more vibrant, accurate colors. The display size has been increased from 5 inches to 5.7 inches, so we’re definitely getting a bulkier handset in the end. According to Sony, Project Morpheus will process graphics at 120 fps, which sounds very neat. With that framerate, Project Morpheus jumps ahead of competition, as both the HTC Vive and Oculus Rift process graphics at 90 fps.

As you might now, the Game Developers Conference is underway in San Francisco, where Sony’s Shuhei Yoshida gave out precious information about Project Morpheus, alongside demo presentations of its performance. According to Yoshida, the current model of the PlayStation, PS4 will be able to work with Morpheus to recreate virtual reality, even though many didn’t believe it was possible. Yoshida also confirmed that the PS4 would be getting an update once Project Morpheus becomes official, which will let it reproduce the framerates for the VR headset. Moreover, Yoshida also detailed other improvements that have been made to the Sony VR headset.

First off, the company managed to get rid of lag, by reducing latency rate to 0.018 seconds, which means that your head-movements will be picked up by the device much quicker, leaving almost no room for lag. Users will also be able to maneuver the headset easier because Sony has added a quick-release button to the gear itself. At the same time, resolution remains at 1080p, while head tracking has been improved with more LED lights that will be picked up by the PS4 sensors. Yoshida confirmed that Project Morpheus is going to be completed shortly, but there still are improvements to be made to the overall gadget.

Project Morpheus isn’t coming to the consumer this year, though. The HTC Vive consumer version will be released by the time we pass into the new year, while Sony’s gadget won’t see the light of day in stores until 2016. According to Yoshida, Project Morpheus will be released in the first six months of next ear, so we might have to wait another year to get these babies in our homes. Although pricing information hasn’t been disclosed, our hunch is that Project Morpheus will be rather expensive. Still, we’re waiting to see how much early adopters will pay for the headsets and we’ll see how the company moves from there. We’re hoping it would be under $500, since you do need to have a PS4 and a PS4 tracking camera in order to use the VR headset.