Sony’s Project Morpheus virtual reality (VR) gaming headset needs to go from good to great, with better gaming experiences, before being ready for the retail market, said Sony’s Worldwide Studios President Shuhei Yoshida in an interview with Polygon.
The VR system, revealed in March, has not been guaranteed for sale in the consumer market, but Yoshida said only those two things need to happen before Project Morpheus is ready.
“We have a good system,” he said. “People enjoy the Morpheus demo, but it’s not enough. It’s coming close, but there isn’t enough in terms of creating real experiences with a sense of presence.”
Yoshida said that until there are “enough developers very comfortable producing great experiences,” the product should not be brought to market. He also said, however, that there is a “long list” of developers waiting to use Sony’s VR technology.
Developers aren’t the only ones who need to buy into VR though, as Yoshida said, consumers also need to believe in the technology, whether they are being convinced by Project Morpheus or it’s VR counterpart, the Oculus Rift.
“We need people to know that for the first time VR is possible at a consumer level,” he said. “And it’s so amazing that we know about it, we’re so excited, but you really have to experience it to believe it. So we have to take every opportunity to propagate it and let people notice.”
Attention was brought to Project Morpheus recently by featuring on The Tonight Show and also at this year’s E3 through demos offered of the VR system.
With all the attention, it seems hard to imagine that Project Morpheus would not work its way into the consumer market eventually, especially when considering that the PlayStation 4 controller’s tracking lights were implemented with the VR system in mind.
Project Morpheus and the Oculus Rift aren’t the only player’s in the market, however, as a VR headset from Samsung was announced in May and Nintendo’s Shigeru Miyamoto told Time that the company has interest in VR technology, though admittedly said he feels uncertainty about whether it is the best way for Nintendo fans to play.
Though Yoshida said only two things must happen before Project Morpheus is ready for consumers; it may be some time before buyers can put it on their wish list, assuming it ever does release to the retail market. The Oculus Rift for example, funded through a Kickstarter campaign in 2012, raised over $2.4 million and nearly 1,000 percent of their funding goal, but does not yet have a confirmed release date for a consumer product (though a development kit is available). There are, however, several games available on Steam that already have Oculus Rift support.
Despite Sony and Oculus VR working on similar products, Yoshida told Engagdet that the two companies have been friendly with one another.
“We believe that we are working for, I believe at least, working for the same goal – to popularize VR,” he said.
