Looking to break into the virtual reality market and compete with the growing popularity of the Oculus Rift, Sony will be announcing a Playstation 4 VR headset next week, according to reports. The announcement will come during the 2014 Game Developer’s Conference (GDC), which is taking place on Tuesday 18th March in San Francisco. At the moment, Sony have said there is little software to speak of, but some third-party developers are already taking an interest in the headset. However, some development teams are happy to wait and see how the virtual reality hardware and software perform before committing to the new Playstation 4 technology.
It is expected that Sony will reveal further details, including a tech demo, at the conference, which will be hosted by the console’s Playstation Eye and Move development executives, Richard Marks and Anton Mikhailov. Currently the GDC website is keeping details about the reveal to a minimum and when asked to quote on the device, Edge-Online magazine were told by a Sony spokesperson that they “do not comment on rumour and speculation.”
This isn’t the first time the console giant has made plans to produce virtual reality and head-mounted displays. However, this will be the first one they’ve developed that has been designed specifically for gaming purposes. Sony hope to take virtual reality gaming and software to the next progressive stage. “The impact of virtual reality technologies could be pretty significant going forward…” lead system architect, Mark Cerny, said last month.
The news is hardly surprising, given the Oculus Rift’s successful launch in 2012, utilising the crowd funding website, Kickstarter. But with the Playstation’s already huge following, is it possible for Sony to take over in terms of virtual reality technology? In an era where alternative forms of control systems are being implemented across major platforms, virtual reality seems to be the next step forward and Sony may have the potential to break the device into more mainstream territories.
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