With Driveclub’s release date still to be confirmed, Sony today released some unfortunate news for hopeful gamers, stating that the virtual reality platform will not be supported with Driveclub. This news isn’t exactly soul crushing as Sony or Evolution Studio never released any official statement saying that it would be supported, most of the speculation had originated from hopeful fans who believed that the delay was due to Sony wanting to add support for the upcoming peripheral. Shuhei Yoshida, President of Sony Worldwide Studios was quoted saying, “There’s a rumor about the reason of the pushback of DriveClub was to make it Morpheus compatible… that’s totally untrue.”
While it is a little late for the “early 2014 release” that Sony announced in October last year, Driveclub still seems to be the premier racing game yet to be released due to the hyper realistic graphics that Evolution Studios has been showcasing in their previews. Amazon.com has listed the game for a September 30th release date, and some customers have allegedly received emails stating that pre-orders will arrive between October 3rd and October 7th. This could just be a placeholder date however, as Amazon does often utilize for upcoming games and movies. Evolution Studios did however already make a VR (Virtual Reality) compatible version of the game, but when Shuhei tried it he claimed that the game began to give him motion sickness once the player began to reach high speeds.
Shuhei also stated when asked about the status of a Driveclub and Project Morpheus collaboration that “all the effort” of the developers was towards the game itself and not towards the new peripheral. With this new announcement some gamers will feel disappointed or even robbed of a new and unique gaming experience but I think it is important to realize that it is inevitable that a VR peripheral is released in the near future. Whether it is Sony’s Project Morpheus or the Oculus Rift, somebody is going to get the idea that a VR racing game could be the future of the genre, and I am confident that one will be released within the first year of the peripherals release.