If you’ve been keeping your ear to the ground lately, you should have heard about Sony unveiling their new Project Morpheus which is Sony’s take on the increasingly-popular Oculus Rift virtual reality headset. Morpheus is a 90-degree viewing angle headset that’s designed to completely immerse you in the games you’re playing. The headset isn’t a stand-alone device as it requires both the PlayStation 4 console and the PS Eye camera to operate and is also not likely to be cheap at all (best guesses are swirling in the $250-$500 range depending on the final product’s hardware setup). Morpheus is very much in its early stages and will in no way make it to market before the end of 2014 (unless Sony wish to release it as a beta product which would not bode well for them in their current financial state). We should expect this kind of tech to surface in its final form in the late 2015 or 2016 timeframe. It’s a cool concept that some are thinking is the next forefront for gaming. So while Sony is cooking up a VR headset, what is Microsoft doing?
A while back, a massive document leaked on the web detailing Microsoft’s strategic plans for Xbox through 2015 that not only included a 2nd gen Kinect and new Xbox platform already-launched, but something that was called “Kinect Shades”. It was definitely a working-title for alpha state hardware but the idea was that this wearable headset would act as an augmented reality device that would be a companion to your Xbox One and offer something similar to a VR headset, without the 100% screen overlay. Augmented reality simply places digital objects into view of actual objects. If you’re familiar with Google Glass then you should have a good idea of how this works. If not, think back to the Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter games, where a soldier had digital overlays of a battlefield that gave readouts and target recognition. With that in your mind, translate that over to Xbox and the gaming world. It’s hard to say exactly how this will all transpire, but augmented reality has its cool factors as well as its big mysteries. How does augmented reality work with gaming? Can games really be constructed to work with such a headset? These are all questions we have zero answers to as Microsoft hasn’t officially announced the tech to the world, yet.
Wearable tech is the future in one way or another. Sony’s Morpheus is a cool idea that will eventually enter a market that is getting a lot of early competition with players that have products much further along (Oculus Rift) and are potentially compatible with current generation games and hardware. The appeal could easily swing in favor of the Rift should it eventually launch with few or no snags. Of course everything is up in the air as evidenced by the very recent acquisition of the Oculus Rift hardware by Facebook. On top of how well the tech comes off the other question will be simple: will gamers want it? Perhaps they will. The only glaring reservation one might see about Sony’s Morpheus is the field of view. 90 degrees of view is not bad, but many of us are capable of seeing a near-180 degree field of view. It would seem like a better idea to build a headset capable of having a greater landscape view to offer an IMAX-like experience within a headset – that is, if immersion is the primary driver behind these kinds of devices.
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