After years of sloppy execution and terrible movies, the Oculus Rift finally made virtual reality viable in 2013. Going into 2014, Oculus won’t be the only VR player anymore as Sony is expected to enter the arena with its own hardware.
EDGE reports that Sony will be showcasing its new virtual reality tech at next week’s Game Developers Conference. Its new VR headset is said to be more advanced than the first generation RIft and will be compatible with the PS4.
The VR headset is expected to be revealed during Sony’s GDC session called “Driving the future of innovation at Sony Computer Entertainment.” The session will feature the two heads of Sony’s R&D – Richard Marks and Anton Mikhailov – alongside Shuhei Yoshida. We’ll likely not see any games for the hardware at the session as EDGE says third parties aren’t committed to the platform just yet. Instead, Sony may just show off an internal tech demo that may or may not involve rubber ducks.
Sony can have all the rubber duck tech demos in the world though and it still won’t make VR a viable platform on consoles. For that, Sony needs games and it doesn’t have them yet. EDGE says developers are taking a wait and see approach before they start making games for the platform. In other words, it’s up to Sony to make the first games for the new platform to prove that it’s a viable market. If successful, third parties will begin building games around virtual reality.
Even if we do enter a world of virtual reality, traditional gamers need not worry. It’s not like every game will be taking advantage of this new technology. Virtual reality lends itself well to certain play experiences, but not all. You don’t have to worry about the next great platformer or action adventure game being exclusive to Sony’s headset as it just doesn’t make sense. You may, however, see the next Killzone game adopt the headset and that’s incredibly exciting.
Image via Wikimedia Commons
