Project Morpheus is set to be the star of Sony's big E3 2015 media briefing tonight – but you may want to put your champagne on ice. Speaking as part of a Wired report – which, incidentally, mentions that Guerrilla Games will be present during the presser – Shuhei Yoshida, the president of PlayStation's first-party network, has hinted that the headset ain't going to be cheap.
"We need to convince PS4 owners to spend several hundred dollars to purchase a Project Morpheus headset, on top of the PS4 they already have," he told the publication. "And more gaming content is what will convince them. We have 30 or more games being developed that we are tracking – not all of them will come out at launch, but there are serious efforts being made on all of them."
According to the publication, this lineup will comprise a vast array of content, including a virtual reality version of Trackmania from Ubisoft, a music visualiser from Rock Band developer Harmonix, and a new game named Wayward Pines from Uber Entertainment, the team behind Monday Night Combat.
"I'm shocked at how broad it is," Adam Boyes, who's in charge of all Sony's external publisher and developer relations, added. "You think everything's going to fall into one of four categories – sports, shooters, action, etc – and that's not the case. Because developers have such great access to VR tools in general, they're just throwing everything at the wall."
But will the variety be enough to get you to invest "several hundred dollars" in the accessory? Yoshida may have misspoken or been misquoted here, but to us, that comment would put the device at anywhere from $300 to $500 – potentially more. Let's hope that it's not quite that extortionate, eh? Indeed, this will be dead on arrival if Sony dares to charge that much.
[source wired.com]
Comments 48
So Sony's E3 presentation is going to be 1 long Wonderbook show either beginning or ending w/ U4??
"several hundred dollars"
Anybody know how many of these sold at $499?
Gulp!
These peripherals will be sold only to hardcore fans unless the price is right. But with the Virtual head gears being in its infancy, the technology is expensive.
Well technically, if we're all going off the dictionary definition here, it could be $300.
My main problem is what I've said elsewhere on this site, I really don't think these games are going to run at 2x60fps when even first party titles only manage 30fps and in some cases drop below that, like Bloodborne. Various VR developers have said you need at least 60fps to avoid sickness, headaches and other issues. That's 60fps per display, so the machine in question has to be rendering 120fps. There is no way on earth the PS4 can do that unless the game looks like a PS2 one.
It's not Sony's fault, you'd need a $2000 PC to run Oculus Rift games properly, plus the cost of the Oculus itself, of course.
As much as I love PlayStation it's clear Sony have a habit of jumping on technology and dropping it within a year...Move, 3D Gaming, Wonderbook..even Vita. By all means they should be pursuing VR but if they wind up dropping the ball and giving up the fantastic start they've had to this generation it'd be a shame. I guess the base games are gunna be coming out regardless, I just hope they make a bit of noise about them during E3 and it isn't 80% VR!
I sense another vita......
@Matroska You're right - I've updated the article ever so slightly to make that clearer.
That's a real quote? Send it to me for FREE and I might give you my opinion on it. If I don't want it feel free to just take it away from me and send it to somebody else. But that's not gonna happen.
Good luck with that...
PLEASE don't make this the star of the show.
I'm begging you Sony.
Don't think this is going to work. I was thinking earlier today that Nintendo tries to innovate by finding new uses for old, cheap technology while Sony prefers to innovate with expensive new technology. A lot of people tend to buy the newest, hottest toys but then again a lot of people are afraid of paying so much on something that may be a failure, so being affordable helps.
If this retails for the same price as the system itself, it won't sell. Bundles would be ridiculously expensive too.
No ta. I'm a traditionalist, all I need is a good game, my pad and a nice cuppa with a few biccys.
@kyleforrester87 I don't think any of them (other than the Vita) were ever positioned as being a central thing, like the Kinect was with the Xbox One originally and how the Wiimote and Wii U gamepad are. I actually like that about Sony; they don't release a severely underpowered console that's entirely based around a novelty controller, they release their console and then later create a peripheral that you can take or leave. The success of the console doesn't depend on it.
The PS3 and Xbox 360 are still getting games released on them, in fact they're getting more games than the Wii U. Each of those consoles have lasted longer than the Wii and Wii U put together, and both of them focus on the console itself rather than wacky peripherals - apart from Microsoft's wobble with putting a Kinect in every box originally.
I think that's the way it should be; in the PS1 and PS2 days, if you bought a light gun you didn't expect every game to support it, or many games at all, and nor would the console be packaged with it as standard. I think Sony are treating Morpheus differently because it's going to be so damn expensive so they can't just treat it like a niche option for some.
I'm with @NaughtyOttsel22 in that I really hope this isn't Sony's main attraction this year...
@Matroska
That in itself is the problem though really. A light gun is pretty cheap, so you'd be happy with a small handful of light gun games to play with your investment. Even with Move being considerably less expensive than Morpheus is looking to be, it's still considered to be unsupported and I'm sure people who purchased Move feel short changed.
Another example is Sony's DS4.. Plenty of technology on it pushing the price of the unit up, such as track pad, light bar, built in speaker, but where is this being utilised outside of one or two well meaning launch games? We aren't really moaning about it because you'd probably only save a tenner on your controllers if it didn't have these features but it's yet another example of an idea put to market and shoulders being shrugged.
I think most gamers are gonna be convinced when they go to gamestop to pick up a game and see the Morpheus Kiosk in the corner, Curious to try it out, pop the headset on, look around and suddenly realize they're not even gamestop anymore. No matter how good of a showing they have at E3 I think that hands on experience is whats gonna sell it. People need to literally see for themselves that this is worth spending the extra money.
Guerrilla Games is working on a VR project, cue disappointment.
Shu RT this: https://twitter.com/vrfocus/status/610470210907336704
Sony's going to need massive 3rd party support or else this is going to be like the PS move. Biggest waste of money since the Sega 32X.
I think if Morpheus is more expensive than PS4, then it's too much. I get the feeling it'll be around the £300 mark, which is beyond my budget sadly Hope it's less!
I'm looking forward to this tech, because I love immersion.
Only reason the wife and me bought a big screen TV was exactly that.
Imagine playing games like Alien Isolation, FarCry, GTA or Grand Turismo with this.
However, I can understand ppl not digging it, since I don't believe VR is for every game genre like competitive Shooters, fighting the controls more then your virtual enemies.
The other reason might be the price. Everything beyond 300€ will not make to the masses. And that better include a game.
I will not be convinced at all. Other's can have fun with that. VR games give me headaches (remembers Sega's Arcade Game "Time Traveler"). I hope it all goes well for Sony on that...
Time Traveler was actually more hologram involved than VR. But still... I want nothing to do with that. Just my choice and opinion..
@sebzweidrei It's not about not digging it, for me at least. The concept is great and I think most people would agree. I just think they won't be able to pull it off in the way it deserves to be as a result of many different factors.
I will buy one for 300. Maybe 399 if they include a game or two.
@kyleforrester87 Well, we'll see how this turns out after tonight.
And once we'll try this out for ourselfs, for that matter.
@Punished_Boss_84
FFS! People are complaining left and right where are all the exclusives... Then they develop 30 games for a device that wont come close to the ps4 install baseq
I'm stoked for this, a definite day one buy for me, unless it's more expensive than the ps4, which would be moronic
I won't buy it if it's more than $200
I had a 3d car game on a headset once, old school lcd. Four modes of difficulty and dodged cars over 4 lanes of traffic, it was great. It broke. My mum bought me a handheld one. It was the same. In fact better as i wasn't wanging a great hulking thing on my swede.
Why play a third person shooter or rock band like this? It wont add anything.
@Itachi its just a screen, you arnt in another world and the illusion wears off. You are still at home in your boxies cramming sugar puffs in your gob. Or in gamestop in your boxies stuffing sugar puffs in your gob.
@themcnoisy I think you're being a bit unfair in terms of how the technology has progressed, I admit I haven't used a modern VR headset but I've got it on good authority from a friend who works with this kind of gear day to day that the effect can be pretty incredible. In terms of how your body responds (such as vertigo) it can be intense, often tricking your senses even in circumstances when the visual quality of the scene is far below that of real life.
Project Morpheus is never going to catch on if they insist on a really high price.
If this is Sony's star attraction this E3 than I am giving this E3 to MS. That free backwards compatibility was huge. Come on Sony you can do better then a gimmicky paraphernalia.
Will be skipping, just a fad that they will wit supporting like move and vita, and then you will have more junk to suit next to you plastic guitar and drums
I'm interested in Morpheus, but only willing to spend $200-$250 for it. It will also need a ton of support from various games, it can't be like the move which really didn't have any notable games for it, and was nearly forgotten about a year later.
I have a bad feeling about this Sony, don't lose your way.
This could be another flop for Sony if it's high in price, but with proper support and advertising, it could become a hit too...if they release it during the holiday season as a bundle item or advertise it greatly during that time. Other than that, it'll now be out of my price range (I was hoping it would cost no more than $200), so it may be a 'no go' for me...maybe a buy during next income tax time, but other than that, I want to see how much support it continues to get, how much of a charge battery wise it gets, hoping that it doesn't take batteries, and what kind of games come out. As someone mentioned before in the comments, sony dropped Wonderbook and Move pretty quickly, and I own both...love them, but no new games made it not worth it.
More than £100 it'll be dead tech within 6 months. Not jumping on the move, 3d tv, 4k or nvidia shield band wagon. It's gotta be able to watch movies and act as a normal monitor/tv except on your head. When it's popular and market share increases then roll out version 2 but a bit pricier. Get it out there fast as possible, affordable and let it's mojo catch the wind.
I really think this is a poor decision. You have a console that is selling just fine. You don't need pointless gimmicks, you just need great games to keep the momentum. But as these companies always do, they see success, get moronic ideas going in their heads and then act on them. I'd love to be behind the closed doors just too see what goes on during these meetings. "Hey how can we divide our fanbase and tick people off and possibly kill a great thing we have going?" Once again though it goes back to what I've been saying, and some will disagree but I don't care, it's Sony going back to its old, arrogant ways at the tail end of the PS2 era leading into PS3 where the suits thought they could do whatever they want and people would just take it.
@Gamer83
I agree, it's always about capturing more of the market or attracting a new user base, even during the good times....
Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo are all guilty of this, I understand it to a point, but when it comes at the expense of the game play experience (Wii to Wii U) or fragmenting developers (Kinect support vice traditional titles), it usually fails in time.
It's not that bad yet IMO, but it's etching closer.
Microsoft is the new Sony of 2009-2013, Sony is the new Microsoft of 2009-2013, lol.
I tried a vr set at sony store in Tokyo an it was amazing. If there 3-4 games coming out that i want to play then yes, 300-400$ is worth the price. Taking games to the next level. Let see what happens. They do need to improve the move-wand tech to match.
Microsoft are absolutely killing Sony strategically. Project Morpheus is just going to be another flop that drives users to the competition. We need to start seeing what Sonys doing that is actually BETTER than it's comp. The games coming out on the PS4 might be better currently, but that won't matter in a year or so. If I was the editor of this website I would seriously consider my long term plans. Won't be much to write about when PlayStation is the small player.
@eLarkos The PS4 has a big market lead and a hugely promising line up for future game releases as well as a current better lineup....What more do you want? Releasing a headset that many people wont buy doesnt change the fact that the PS4 is killing the competition.
@Matroska I haven't followed to closely but isn't there additional hardware in the morpheus to help churn out those visuals.
If you can play Star War: Battlefront on it, I'm sold.
@themcnoisy or at your mom's house in my boxies!
@THEundying27 No she doesn't have Morpheus unfortunately.
Show me some kind of a short Anime style type of interactive chick anime girls interactive commercial skit, especially if I see a glimpse of Hatsune Miku doing things and Im DEFINITELY going to throw some serious cash at it.
Better yet, im going to make sure you take my money for that kind of rare Mature copy.
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