Virtual reality: Sony’s thoughts on Oculus Rift, not needing triple-A, and similarities to Wii U

A new interview with Yoshida's thoughts on Project Morpheus.

[deantak]

Shu is pretty confident to be so straight.

[Sadie2100]

That's pretty cool that he thinks the Oculus could help Sony out.

[randomass171]

Competition is always helpful. Without Nintendo and Microsoft, Sony probably wouldn't have turned out as great with video games as they are now.

[JOEgolferG]

Even though they have been in the console gaming industry a lot longer than Microsoft?

[randomass171]

@JOEgolferG Well, sure. A number of decisions for the PS4 were made after Microsoft announced certain things about Xbox One. The 360 obviously helped Sony achieve something better after PS3. Competition, even newer competition, can definitely be a good thing.

[darkronin229]

You missed a golden opportunity to call this "Shoe on Shu."

[ColManischewitz]

It's weird to see one big company like Sony say a potential competitor could actually help it. Weird, weird, weird.

[randomass171]

Not surprising to me. Yoshida is all about the industry as a whole, not just Sony. Wouldn't surprise me at all if Sony has more people like that.

[OtakuDJK1NG-Rory]

it just Yoshida who acknowledge them. When Jack Tretton was there he downplay competition and gets cocky a lot.

[aliengmr]

Makes perfect sense.

VR is a special case in that its a tech that has already failed to connect to any market once before.

Its an engineering problem, and under those conditions "competition" would only do more harm than good right now. In the future, sure, but not now.

Its not like the consoles themselves which were just refining tech in an existing market. In that way competition is fine. There was already a very large market to compete for.

VR doesn't have that market and still needs still has to over come a big engineering hurdles. Sony and OVR need VR to succeed first before worrying about which will be better.

"We’re not making a new product for an existing market. We’re trying to break into something that doesn't exist yet."

VR is a challenge far bigger than any one company. It may be too big for both parties involved, we'll have to wait and see.

[wonderfulmonkeyman]

I don't think that oculus rift or morpheus are going to make any sort of big permanent splash in the gaming community.
Not until gamers are comfortable ditching tv's for them, which isn't likely to happen any year soon.

[BoneBone]

3D TVs never took off because no one wants to sit there wearing glasses. I can see even fewer people wanting to sit around wearing big goggles.

[KwietStorm_BLM]

No, that's not why 3D didn't take off.

[AceBlazer13]

3d never took off because it was flatout a pain in the ass. The strain a majority of people got after a while of 3d just wasn't worth it.

[randomass171]

It also costs extra money and the glasses do factor in as a negative. It hurts your eyes and the extra payoff isn't worth it.

[Joe913]

I have no clue what any of you are talking about have you even played a game in 3d lol I can sit and play KZ3 for hours and hours the bullets feel like they coming out of the screen and I think VR killed 3d in games but as far as saying a 3d tv never took off your crazy every movie that comes out is in 3d and Netflix streams in 3d if it was dead why put the money in that.

[zeuanimals]

Yeah, prices of $2000+ for a 3DTV compared to a regular HDTV priced at $500-1000 had nothing to do with it... And the fact that most people are completely fine with their current TVs and hardly ever upgrade unless there's something wrong with their current one, which leads to low TV sales also had nothing to do with it.

It was because people didn't like wearing glasses, that's why you never see people wearing reading glasses, sunglasses, or even tacky Real 3D glasses with the lenses taken out.

[hamburgerhill]

I hope you're wrong because VR is bigger than most people at this time seem to realize. It's nothing like 3d or bs kinect and will be a game changer like I said if you're wrong.

[randomass171]

We'll see how it is as far as the next big thing is concerned. If they want it to catch on, it needs to be affordable and it needs to work with people's everyday devices.

[wonderfulmonkeyman]

Well, think about this, then...
if moving their heads down a bit, or holding their controller aloft a bit, is enough for some people to hate the wii u's controller, then why would these same people like a device that puts extra weight on their heads, makes them swivel their head in many different directions, works best with first person but loses effect with third person, is far less portable, and may require batteries on top of all of that?

The writing is on the wall already, my friend; gamers prefer tv's over vr headsets for their everyday gaming sessions, as a majority rule.

[Death]

VR requires the PS4 camera for head tracking. If you used bs Kinect with it, you could track more than just your head. It's incredible you can see the potential benefitof VR, but not see the benefit of body tracking and voice commands.

[Eric2929]

Great interview -- really liking Sony's approach and attitude to VR.

[seatunt]

Competition drives innovation, not to mention all the free mainstream press the Oculus Rift is going to bring to the VR arena. If Sony or the Oculus can show why it's unique outside of having a display on your face, it could, hopefully should, take off!

[hamburgerhill]

This guy has a great attitude for competition. The release of Morpheus will be my entry into playstation.

[S2Killinit]

I'm also extremly excited for VR. But i recommend you purchase the PS4 ahead of VR launch since it would be very expensive to buy both. (unless of course you are a baller.)

[hamburgerhill]

Lol...You made a good point. My wife no matter how much I make would question this purchase.

[user5669510]

So they are basically saying me too and are going to focus wat ORift do and get devs to port games to ps4. And they said only thing they have over ORift is confort and surround sound which is easy to overcome . I welcome Sony vr but its easy to see how they got their vr tech especially with them say they have only work on it a few years and doing everything exactly like ORift.