Sony working on ‘social experiences’ for Project Morpheus
Sony are looking to incorporate social experiences in Project Morpheus when the virtual reality headset releases. The London studio of Sony Computing Entertainment revealed to Digital Spy that the developer had been working on games that will involve multiple people in the virtual reality experience. Studio director Dave Ranyard said that their experience in producing games such as SingStar, The Playroom and EyeToy Play, gives them a unique chance to create games that have a strong social aspect, with the developer having already demonstrated two prototypes.
“[Social games are] something we really want to bring to VR,” he said. “We made the EyeToy games, like EyeToy Play… and there was a point with those, before they were released, when the team realised actually we like watching people do this is almost as fun as doing it. Having that social screen is really important to us. There’s actually quite a lot you can do with that. We’ve been doing lots of companion apps as well – you can interact, you can see what they’re seeing – you can imagine that with a haunted house, and you can totally see it – the payoff is brilliant.”
Sony are heavily investing in Project Morpheus in the hopes that it will be a big success within its gaming business. According to senior designer Jed Ashforth, the team behind designing the PlayStation 4 controller built it with the virtual reality headset in mind from the start so that it could work seamlessly with the current setup. Project Morpheus will also support the PS Vita and designers have already tested the hardware with the portable console.
Project Morpheus is not the only virtual reality headset being developed to work directly with video games. Oculus VR, the developers behind perhaps the most notable virtual reality hardware, has already demonstrated how the Oculus Rift can be used to play games. Titles such as Team Fortress 2, Synergy and Surgeon Simulator 2013 already support the headset and many other games currently in development are being made to work with the technology.
Samsung are also known to be working on their own virtual reality headset while Microsoft are believed to be working with a number of different companies to bring the technology to the Xbox One and its other platforms. The Redmond based company though is aware that it is lagging behind its rivals in developing working virtual reality hardware meaning that it may be some time before Xbox users get their hands on games that support the technology.