Good detailed article:
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-2015-project-morpheus-tech-interview
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-2015-project-morpheus-tech-interview
The sheer wealth of experience across disciplines may well be the key advantage Sony holds over the competition - a vast range of staff across the world experienced in producing great games and quality hardware. At his talk at GDC this week, John Carmack admitted that Oculus hadn't fully got to grips with the thorny issue of what kind of controller should be used for VR. Valve and HTC have developed their own twin wand set-up, which in many ways feels very similar to Sony's PS Move controllers - celebrating their fifth birthday this year.
"Yeah, it was ahead of its time," smiles Marks. "A bit. Maybe."
Sony had created a controller with full 3D positional tracking, but Move's enviable capabilities were left mostly untapped. It was a 3D controller in a 2D world - until now.
The London Heist demo is the closest thing Sony displayed to an actual game. A masterpiece in immersion, its only real limitation is that you're effectively standing on the spot for the duration. Traversal through the VR world is a major challenge that nobody seems to have cracked yet.
But how demanding on system resources is the reprojection technology itself? Does the need to drive 120Hz impact on system resources?
"It's very short. It's done in the system software we have, a version that just does it for you. It runs right at the very end, just before the frame is going to be displayed. It interrupts the GPU and does this little bit of work. I don't know the exact timing of it, but it's very small. The impact of adding that in is not something that our people are worried about."
"The programmer who did the Japan Studio game said that this system doesn't take much power away from the game. He said it's easy," says Yoshida. "By the way, you've been counting frames for many years. Did you notice the difference between the native 120 demo and the others?"
I reply that 60Hz content has a very slight ghosting effect to it that I didn't see on the 120Hz demo. I explain it's a trade I'm happy to make if it means we get VR titles as visually rich as the London Heist.
Even before we discuss the challenges facing the future of gameplay in the VR world, the biggest obstacle will be in getting consumers to try the headsets and instantly get the intended effect, whether they're wearing glasses or not, and preferably without feeling ill. On a basic ergonomic level, Sony seems well ahead of the competition: the original Morpheus prototype was good, and the second-gen headset is easily the closest thing to a viable, consumer-friendly piece of kit we've seen at GDC this year.