it's norm from test comm I'm here at GDC
2014 one of the big surprise
announcements because Sony has its own
virtual reality headset I'm here with
Jorge andreas you're a creative director
at Sony Computer Entertainment that's
correct
and you guys have a virtual reality
headset that's we're doing right now yes
it's been rumored over the last few
months and I think it's you know it's
the first public outing so people who
get to see it for the first time very
excited to be here and very excited to
be showing it to the public and to kind
of make those rumors a reality I guess
so yeah so it's called project Morpheus
watching Morpheus and that's based on
the Lord of dreams the Sandman Lord of
dreams yes some people kind of relate it
a little bit to The Matrix movies as
well but yeah Lord Of Dreams it's about
kind of projecting and you know a little
bit of a diet see new worlds new new
things to experience so and it's an HND
that works with the PlayStation cool
that's great John this is something you
guys have been developing for a while
now where did this start in what was
design approach so there was a talk
given the other day issue hey neros
world by two days he basically was
talking about the development of the kit
has been nearly two or three years now
so it's something that's been in the
background the the teams that only been
working very hard to try and make I
guess make make it a reality
you know I guess with with all
electronics companies especially Sony
always looking to do new things and try
and forge ahead and look for the next
big thing so I think once we started
putting some demos together and we got
to see some traction internally there
were a few disbelievers it took a while
to kind of get people to believe in it
but I think once you've got the great
demos there and the demos were able to
really punctuate how fantastic VR really
is and so yeah so this in terms of the
technologies what are the technologies
that make VR possible now the sense of
presence that you guys want to achieve
your PlayStation 4 obviously had to come
out first
accessory for that but what in terms of
the head tracking terms explain there's
a lot of things obviously we have a very
very low latency that's one of the big
big key things ready to try and stop
things like nausea we also have a very
very fast framerate as well so all of
these factors combined together we have
two 1080p screens obviously through to
1080p to 1080p screen so high resolution
and all these factors come together to
try and make the
parents as believable as possible the
software that we create has to be also
trying to kind of get the player
immersed as much as possible some people
call it a sense of presence I call it
true immersion but true immersion is
something allows players to actually
adopt a persona to be in the experience
and to be experiencing it in a way they
would if they were there in the real the
real world and not all of these elements
together things like motion tracking
being able to move your head to the left
and to the right as you can see with
these these new headsets we have LEDs at
the back as well so we can track 360
degree rotation we have other things in
our ecosystem such as the ds4 controller
we have the Move controller as well so
that gives us limbs if we want to have
two limbs in the experience as well so
all of these things can add together to
make a very immersive experience I want
to get to the technical details let's
start the display you said to 1080 beat
displays yes it's 960 by 1080 oh for
each eye that's correct and you guys
using an LCD what's the advantage of
using an LCD over an MLA I terms of the
RGB stripe in a screen or fact so I
think it's more to do with the three
fresh and the ability to just get a
clean very clean image that's a refresh
rate you guys use or not quite sure off
the top of my head okay but it's high
enough refresh it's light enough yes yes
it'll be very smooth yes okay and then
you guys are using custom-made optics
for a field of view that's correct yes
what's a great field of view will your
eyes be able to see so there is somebody
else we can get involved it's more
technical if you wanted to go to all
those technical specs I'm not sure we're
releasing too much of the information
today but we can do a little bit more
about them on compass infinities yeah so
were you able to turn all the way around
as well and be able to see you know
things that are behind you as well so
yeah 360 degree view 360 degrees so uses
the camera and it's IR based
yes it is yes ir leds all around the way
around from the front them to the sides
around the back as well so as I said
you'd be able to turn all the way around
and will always always be able to
connect get your orientation see where
you are so in terms of the lighting in
the back what's the function of having
not mine so when the players turn away
from the camera they've got a point of
reference at the back of the head so
they can turn all the way around and we
do get to see you know we can have
proper 360 degree rotation I think there
are some VR systems that don't have full
360 degree rotation but it's very
important from an experiential
perspective to allow players to
experience we are truly in
totally and I think being able to turn
all the way around being able to look
all the way up and look all the way down
is part of VR and it's part of the
immersion and so having LEDs at the back
does allow us to kind of push that level
of interaction oh you guys are designing
this to work standing up in this down
most particular I was able to bend my
knees out and see the virtual model bend
down yes is this can be experienced sign
boat or standing up and sitting down so
yeah we're working on a bunch of
different demos at the moment this one
is all about standing up because in the
real world you'll stand up in a shark
cage and so we thought this would be a
great example a great demonstration of
the tech from a standing position there
are experiences that work very well from
a seated position as well it just
depends what you're doing if you're in a
cockpit for instance that will work
quite well if you are seated right but
we have a bunch of different demos that
we've done and this is just one of those
any plugs into the ps4 is that can be a
pass-through system as far as your HDMI
out the idea will be that it's literally
you go to wherever it is going to get it
from whether it's Best Buy or Walmart's
we want it to be as simple and as
ergonomic as possible people will be
able to buy it from day one go home we
don't want a lot of setup we wanted to
be very straightforward and intuitive
pull of one lead in and hopefully that
will be here so we want it to be very
very simple there is a breakout box on
the system as well that allows us to
have a big screen display so she's a
plug-in in here still plug it into the
TV but it would be a single-player
experience and ps4 support one of the
worldís this is what we're doing it is
but what we're trying to do is trying to
make we are not just something as a
solitary experience I think we do have a
wire call in the social screen where you
can actually see the feed on the big
screen and we feel that come venice's
the room people are able to see what's
going on and experience what the person
who's wearing the VR headset can
actually see we do have other ideas with
this as well we actually got it
backstage where we can actually use
companion devices as well so for
instance in this particular demo we can
actually throw like another shark into
the scene or even generate a sea turtle
and play around with that in the scene
so someone in PSVita and that's correct
that's correct so it makes it a more
social experience it's not just an
isolated and isolated experience I think
that's one of the big things a lot of
game design opportunities lots plenty
Quentin in terms the urban area Leigh
interesting design that the head bed I
thought was really comfortable what is
this going to be the design approach
experimenting more so obviously as you
go through any kind of hardware launch
you you iterate on the design and this
is kind of where we are currently today
it's taken of many steps to get it to
where it is today there are more designs
that we're looking at so the economics
are coming on this isn't final there
will be modifications made to this
design but you know so near a great
electronics company no consumer
electronics when making something well
hopefully the aspiration looks very cool
we've got a lot of great feedback from
people so far some people think they
look like Iron Man kind of wearing the
suit it looks very cool so we're on the
right path for them we're very happy
with where we are currently today from a
development standpoint do you feel like
you're a feature complete are you adding
more features one of the Tarte next
targets for you turns out I think I
think the ergonomics is a big one we
want to make sure that it's very easy to
put on it's very comfortable
obviously the software that we're going
to be creating will will help kind of
demonstrate what how cool we are can
actually be I think in terms of the LEDs
I think that's pretty much there or
there abouts in terms of being able to
get 360 degree rotation we obviously
have the other ecosystem to combine with
this like I said you already have a move
or the DES force that we have we have
peripherals there that do allow us to
dig into
I guess VR and making unique experiences
but it's a work in progress this is
where we are today and we'll see in the
future where where it does go and it
will be in the future so you guys have
sent in something not for this year well
we're not saying anything specifically
about the release date that's something
that's still under consideration and I
think this is just our way of saying you
know Sony's in this space by looking at
VR we think it's a viable thing for the
future we don't think it's just for
games as well and just the gamers we do
feel that there are or there will be
applications that will appeal to a lot
of different people media experience and
leader experiences movies you know
there's a whole bunch of things that
were working on the studio as well that
that kind of bring that a little bit
more to the fore
but yeah we think they are is something
that will be very groundbreaking it is
obviously creating a little buzz at the
moment and hopefully we can generate
enough interest and and the right
software to really showcase awesome
thank you so much much we can't wait for
this to come out into the real world
right and play it with our PlayStation
sports as well well that's it for GDC
2014 we're so lucky to be able to try
out project Morpheus here at the Sony
booth I'm norm please subscribe our
youtube channel with more amazing stuff
virtual reality at GDC video games tech
all that kind of stuff on test comm
we'll see you next time bye
okay no we just got other demos what do
you think so we didn't look the same
gamma was the demo Valkyrie also which I
get struggling a lot right
it was a real polish devil that was
literally the first thing that jumped
out to me is that this is software that
looks like was made by a real
development house not not that the
oculus demos we've seen haven't been
great but the motion of the animals is
great the flow of all the fish in there
what at what if schools schools of all
the fish were all really natural and
fluid and that also tells me I also
brought to my help on interactive not
samolowicz all you were doing was
looking around yeah as opposed to the
oculus I'm aware you were playing a game
well we didn't play back three which is
a game it's a space shooter is cockpit
game this we were standing up though
also which is unusual for VR demos in my
experience I don't think I've stood up
during a VR demo or any VR experience so
far here yeah oculus you have to sit
down yeah and maybe a big point of
saying that this is going to boat a
couch and sandy experience you for eval
curry I imagine that something you're
gonna sit down and play with change perk
let's talk about presence though yeah
because in this demo you could you're in
a cage you're a diver you can look down
you can see your the fins on your feet
and because of the the I camera got some
skeleton tracking when you bend your
knees your knees Bend in the game and
you've got that thing that I wanted
during the oculus couch Nights demo the
other day
now unfortunately that's weird and if
you lift it up a foot the foot didn't
move that was super disorienting all
you're doing squats the entire time you
also have a DualShock controller
yeah which that's tracked by the camera
so it has rotational movement and a
little bit of translation yeah yeah so
it has gyros accelerometer and uh and
the camera does this position based on
the on the light on so you were able to
you were able to do head and body
independently or at least head and gun
independently so what was interesting
about this is I thought the ergonomics
it was not really comfortable on the man
once that elastic band got over your
head because if you look at the head
centers it's white plastic yeah but
inside the white plastic is a black last
man that's been already snuggling
there's no tough and like you have with
the oculus right nothing the design here
the weight this
you should horse I think it's probably a
little bit heavier the other thing that
they did a really great job with is you
put the headset on and then there you
know again it's a prototype so this all
can probably change but when you put the
headset on the visor is pretty far out
and then you squinch it in right you set
up a town and it had almost like a
rubber gasket rather than a foam pad and
a big hard plastic shell so even though
I was wearing glasses it pushed right up
to the edge of my eyes and gave me a
pretty good seal on monoculars about the
same field of view as the oculus I would
say roughly acquittals putting on a dive
mask I think this dive demo didn't
happen by accident
right also they're using that LCD panel
so you're talking about square pixels
with the screen door high enough
resolution I didn't notice this green
door can you scare really closely you
can see it right you're moving not so
much the RGB stripe arrangement of these
sub pixels noticeably different from
your your pencil striking AMOLED not as
bright clearly as the oculus the demo
doesn't bother me because you're a year
game you're in a dark environment you're
isolated I'm moving I didn't notice a
whole lot of motion blur but because of
the demo that was that we were in there
was not a lot of high contrast
situations you were looking at bright
blue on don't light gray and like
nothing was moving super fast you
couldn't move the camera super fast my
feeling is that in terms of the
persistence of vision it is better than
oculus dk1 I thought there was more
smearing on I think this yeah then on
development concern I would definitely
agree with that or Crystal Cove for that
matter um I I was pretty impressed like
this is much much better in fact the
optics were great you had a pretty good
field of view the comfort was there
having the controller and the skeleton
tracking in the camera actually added a
lot to that presencing it's a piece that
oculus doesn't have so concerns right
now framerate there was some people John
Carmack on Twitter talking some smack
about ps4 not me will pump out enough
rain I think his on this his quote was
ps3 games that run in 60 frames a second
will work with this and then we came
back later said hey not taking shots it
was not a high poly demo and also you
can only use one with a kiss
dr. bill in Baltimore populace I don't
think it'll plug Marcus multiple oculus
isn't one computer either I yeah I think
the thing to take away from this is when
we posted the oculus thing yesterday or
day before yesterday a lot of people
came out and we're saying hey this is a
war the VR war is on this stuff is also
knew that that anybody especially a
company of Sony scale and with the
software development resources as Sony
has coming in and and building for this
for VR is good for the VR community like
it is it is not a zero-sum game people
buying Sony stuff aren't going to not by
oculus stuff it's not going to take away
from anything and and more people
pushing forward will just be better for
it and there are lessons for both
parties I mean I think this was a really
impressive first showing I mean they had
the advantage of the late start I'm
interested see what Microsoft does next
and anybody else who comes in so all
right um I guess that'll do it for us at
Sony at GDC 2014 see you guys later bye
