Driving the Future of Innovation at Sony Computer Entertainment (Presented by Sony Computer Entertainment America)
Richard Marks | Senior Director, SCEA R&D
Anton Mikhailov | Sr. Software Engineer, SCEA R&D
Shuhei Yoshida | President, SCE Worldwide Studios
Join Sony Computer Entertainment for a presentation on innovation at PlayStation® and the future of gaming.
EVENT OVER
-No livestreams or videos are allowed at the event. However, SCEA is recording the event, presumably for later distribution.
Live Blogs:
Announcements:
-Project Morpheus announced, three years in development so far. The headset below is the VR Dev kit and is not final, but a "good representation of it."
-Working with NASA. Says Richard Marks: "They're already trying to use VR to do immersive science. We'd love to make hardware good enough for them to do that. Secondly, we want to create new experiences for our Playstation owners so that when NASA gets to a new place, everyone with a Playstation can feel what it's like to be there."
-Unveiled at GDC so they can scoop up developers for the VR program and get more feedback. Hands on demos start tomorrow for GDC attendees (3/19)
-Works with people with glasses.
-Current specs: 1080p display. 90+ FoV. "It's not necessarily the final thing we're going for," but it's good for devs to experiment with. 15mm eye relief and a "wide IPD we can work with." Positional and rotational head tracking. 1000hz, 3 metet working volume. Full 360 degrees. Supports forward prediction. DS4 and PS Move with the same camera. Audio jack is on the headset to plug in your own headphones.
-Geoff Keighley: "Developers who have used Project Morpheus tell me the fidelity of the image and experience is superior to Oculus Rift."
-Eve Valkyrie will be demoed using the headset (previously Oculus Rift exclusive).
-A special build of Thief demoed as well.
-Price and release date: "as soon as possible, for as low as possible."
Q&A:
Q: "Locmotion: you can put your hands in the game with the PS Move... any option to get your feet in there so you can move around?" A: "We're researching... it depends on what you're trying to accomplish."
Q: "have you let your kids try it or any kids... are there recommended age ranges?" A: "We've had young people try it and they've been very excited by it."
Q: "I'm wondering why the name 'Project Morpheus' A: "Well... we decided on the name last week" (laughs). "It was decided because Morpheus is the god of dreams... not a Matrix reference." (laughs)
Q: On the list of content and tool partners, there were many involved in 3D. Can you comment in the specific role that you see 3D playing with Project Morpheus." A: "It's different than 3D cinema -- this is fundamentally different because we're correctly rendering the view for each eye. The experience is different than 3D TV. Some of the tools will overlap, especially the authoring tools will be useful for VR rendering."
Q: "what do you guys see for VR for school systems? Do you see this project being used for education?" A: "One of the great things about consumers electronics is affordability.There's great work now by USC using VR for PTSD treatment. Our hardware will be useful for those efforts too. Currently our experience with NASA has been positive."
Q: "Seems like Project Morpheus works in conjunction with the PS Move. Is the next step in the process to work on haptic responses?" A: "I think haptics would further enhance presense. We're not currently working on any specialized VR haptic peripheral, but down the road I think haptics will be a big part of VR"
Q: "given the horsepower question, will the VR experience rendered for the PS4 be rendered slower than 2D games on the PS4?" A: "The graphics are so rich because you are immersed. You need a different kind of graphics optimization."
Q: "Are you looking into eye tracking?" A: "Yes"
Q: "How many units do you plan people to have?" A:" Right now it's one per PS4"
Q: "Will it support PC? HMZ series was popular among PC gamers because it was HDMI. Do you see a future where it could go beyond the console world?" A: "We're not discussion product decisions today."
Q: "Are you working with Oculus or other makers to sync APIs?" A: "I think now it's all just in spirit, there isn't any standardization yet."
Q: "When will the unit come out?" A: "As soon as possible" (laughs)
"Is it wired?" A: current protoype is wired... 5 meters. We're investigating other solutions, obviously everyone wants it to be wireless.
"Would the unit ever be stand-along without a playstation?" No not really.
PlayStation EU Blog:
http://blog.eu.playstation.com/2014/03/19/introducing-project-morpheus/
