System Update: Can Sony's Project Morpheus push VR into the mainstream?  

VR headset introduced at Game Developers Conference in San Francisco this week will eventually work with Playstation 4

BY EBENEZER SAMUEL / NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

FRIDAY, MARCH 21, 2014, 9:50 AM

SONY

Eyes on the Future: Sony's Project Morpheus

Just when you thought TV was the best way to play video games, here comes another option. Less than a year after we were gifted with two brilliant new consoles, Sony is introducing a brand new way to game.

At the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco, the company announced Project Morpheus, a VR headset that will eventually work with the PlayStation 4.

Morpheus isn’t ready for the market, according to Sony, but it was available at GDC for hands-on sessions. It’s still in its prototype stages, and it’s likely not nearly as polished as the crowd-funded Oculus Rift that debuted two years ago.

But Morpheus seems set to have a different purpose, one that could finally truly further the idea of VR. While the Oculus Rift (which debuted a new kit for developers at GDC), has found its place among the computer crowd, Sony seems intent on pushing Project Morpheus to the console gamer. That means it will find its way into living rooms and must cater toward families and less tech-savvy gamers.

And that means a serious uphill battle. It means the technology must be perfected to make a good first impression, and it must be user-friendly. To that end, Sony reps at GDC talked of the need for Morpheus to be a pick-up-and-play device, the kind of thing you could just grab off the coffee table and instantly use. They also talked of the need to avoid some common VR issues, such as motion sickness.

It’s all terrifically ambitious, and off on the horizon. Sony’s taken a slow approach to its VR chase, and Morpheus has been in development for three years. Sony Santa Monica has played a key role in everything, working with a prototype that included two Move controllers and getting a God of War demo up-and-running.

But while the tech seems cool, there are still many hurdles. Microsoft’s own Kinect technology is equally “cool,” and its made great strides on the Xbox One, but I’ve come to use it for one main purpose: To voice-control my TV.

The fact remains that the good, old-fashioned controller remains the gold standard for gaming, and all these other things, from Sony’s own Move to the Kinect to second screen interaction via tablets, remain as peripherals at best. I use none of them when I play Call of Duty: Ghosts, none of them in Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes, and none of them when I play the sublime Dark Souls II.

If Sony’s Project Morpheus hopes to truly succeed past the hardcore crowd (and Sony is certainly aiming to accomplish that), it will need to transcend that evil “peripheral” tag. Just as importantly, it will need a massive library of games and software that not only function with it but thrive with it.

To that end, Sony took a very smart approach in introducing the technology at GDC instead of June’s much bigger, more ballyhooed Electronics Entertainment Expo in Los Angeles. It’s pushing the device to developers, giving them a chance to create and find their own uses for it. It takes a great deal of creativity to use these new pieces of hardware, and that’s something that we haven’t seen enough of on the Kinect or Sony’s own Move, where repetitive dance titles and fitness games dominate the market with little else of note.

Will Project Morpheus be different? Only time will tell.

THE TURNAROUND OF SIM CITY

So SimCity can in fact be played offline! A year ago, the game debuted with an always-online setup that irked users - and frustrated them - in large part because it didn’t work correctly. But thanks to “gains in optimization of the Glass Box engine,” whatever that means, it can be played the without the aid of the Internet.

Why couldn’t they have done this a year ago? I have no idea, but I’ll say this: It would have been better to release the game in 2014 with the necessary offline play, instead of releasing it in 2013 as an always-online title.

TURBO BOOST

Speaking of always-online, that remains the greatest flaw in the splendid next-gen versions of NBA 2K14. The connectedness of the title doesn’t break the game, but it makes it more annoying and more inconvenient than any sports title I’ve played recently . . . In case you’re wondering, I can piledrive through Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes’ main mission in under an hour. I also don’t mind spending hours in Omega Base, silently trying to kill every single soldier. It’s a unique game . .