Antiwhippy
the holder of the trombone
The money doesn't just cover the hardware costs. It takes into account cost of R&D, shipping, manufacturing and various other things, including how to turn a profit.
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Austrian Retailer Lists Project Morpheus for Q2 2016, 399
- Thread starter ekim
- Start date
The money doesn't just cover the hardware costs. It takes into account cost of R&D, shipping, manufacturing and various other things, including how to turn a profit.
Morpheus will sell PS4's too, though. A person judging whether to go XB1 or PS4, and sees that they can do VR on PS4 and not on XB1 could sway people over to PS4. It boosts the base platform and provides extra incentive to buy the console. I'm not saying there will be a ton of people buying PS4's *just* for Morpheus, but it could well sway decisions.
And if you're talking 'VR exclusive' titles, then yea, sure. There probably wont be a ton of those, at least not right away. But there will probably be a fair amount of games that have Morpheus support in some form of another and people will want to buy these games once they get a taste of VR, trust me.
KillerSloth
Banned
People are crazy if you think it will be this cheap on launch.
MikeE21286
Member
Not true at all. The HMZ was expensive cause of incredibly precise optics and mini oled display with out of the world ppi (they were micro display, medical tech). Every VR headset now use mainstream smartphone techs.
The fact is that PS4 still have an advantage over Xbone and sells a ton without Morpheus. So currently there is no justifiable business reason to sell it under cost.
And if we look at the PS4 install base, the biggest sales are for multiplats which we can't realistically expect to adopt VR en mass too soon. So everything will rely on 1st party software and indie games. And that doesn't really seem to be too big of an income source.
And then there is also a question of opportunity cost. Let's say they manage to sell Morpheus under $300. At what price will they sell the VR games to get back the money? Will a $60 VR game be attractive? I would rather see it as selling the hardware at cost or a little above and provide the games cheaper or some even free. Or even better, bundle Morpheus with 2-3 games that really demonstrate the experience.
From this point of view I think $399 it's quite possible and I don't see it being reduced under $300.
Edit: although, the more they go later into 2016, the bigger the chance of them being able to reduce the production cost.
Theonik
Member
Yes, though we don't know what Sony is actually using as far as internal technology is concerned do we? HMZ was very expensive, not just because it was new, low-volume technology but it was positioned like a premium device. The morpheus will be sold to normal consumers.
And yes you are right in that the extra tech on a VR set is not expensive unless you are talking about the Vive. A cheap PCB with a micro-controller and motion sensors as well as some LED lights. All come to $10 tops.
Ah okay, thanks. I had no idea how that worked.
I'm not arguing that. I am a VR Believer, I have a DK2 myself and will jump at this if it has at least one killer app (I need one to justify having two headsets since i'm def gonna buy the Oculus CV or Vive HMD). However I still think this is more of a "let's test this tech out with the hard core user" approach as opposed to "this is the reason to own a ps4" kind of thing, and therefore they will want to make money with it out of the gate. I'd love to be proven wrong here, but, for me, it looks like I'll be 350-400€ poorer come 2016
Depends on what you mean by 'similar'. There'll be some differences, but roughly, they're quite similar VR headsets and will function the same general way, with some differences in image quality, framerates, and maybe control schemes.
Who said anything about selling 'under cost'? Once again, there is a difference between not wanting to lose money on something and needing to make a profit on it.
Multiplatform games will make up the majority of VR content, I can assure you.
Like I said, many games will have Morpheus support, but wont be VR exclusive games. They'll be sold at whatever they were already selling for. VR exclusive games will have to be judged based on what sort of game it is, obviously.
You're overthinking it.
That's also not what 'opportunity cost' means, but that's not super relevant!
Why, though?
So, to get this right, you think Morpheus will cost Sony under $200 to produce it?
It does have to take a stereo, warped image, chop it in half, unwarp it and stretch to fill the TV. Maybe not complicated, but not super cheap either. It probably also has to have a HDMI splitter built in to return the PS4 signal back to the TV, for when you aren't using the morpheus.
Add in various cables, camera and at least one move, and I could see that potentially being around that price. (although clearly it is likely to be a conservative placeholder, especially if that store does a 'your preorder price will never go up' thing like Amazon does)
For a company like Sony, I do believe it might be possible.
I actually wonder whether the breakout box will be completely necessary in the end. But I don't know the specifics behind it or anything.
E3 is only around the corner. Price may be announced then and retailers given a heads up already.
It's plausible, given the timing.
fastest finger
Member
It looks like the listing has now been removed - or GAF has crashed it. Anyone else seeing that?
There are many reasons actually
For one, since it releases relatively late in the cycle. About half way through the cycle actually (If we are to believe that this cycle will be shorter than the 360s which seems to be what many publications are pushing).
Second, VR is still very much a niche market for the foreseeable future. Even though I think this will change, it will take a whole lot of word of mouth to convince casual players they have to shell out a few hundred bucks and cut off the world around them.
Additionally VR is very family unfriendly. No sane parent would buy their child a VR Headset so he could shut himself out of human interaction. A serious image change for VR has to happen first, which is still far off. Rather than getting families together (like the wii or kinect) it rather looks like it pushes them apart.
So you are stuck with tech and gaming enthusiasts who have enough money to afford a ps4 and a morpheus. And I think most of these won't care all that much if it's 250 or 350. If you can get 10 million with 250 and zero profit or 7 million with 350 and 700 million profit they'll take the 350.
If It's not 149 with a game casuals won't stumble over themselves to get one.
So if they get to 10 million units sold within the barely 2 years before the next iteration is announced, I will be seriously baffled, and I think with that install base they wouldn't put too many big titles out for it, but rather push them to morpheus 2/ps5
Further, they can push this as a platform as much as they want, it will always be a peripheral in the public eye.
All in all I think that explains quite well why I think this is to check/prepare the market for ps5/morpheus bundle. However, I could be wrong and the HMD will be 199, everyone will buy one and VR will be commonplace in every household within two years. I seriously doubt it though.
Oppo
Member
this quote makes me laugh. not in a mocking way...
just imagining my 12 year old self scoffing at the idea of a "VR helmet" costing as much as the 512K RAM expansion for an Amiga 500
panda-zebra
Member
That seems massively over-engineered. Why wouldn't the ps4 simply display one of the stereo images before the pass that is sent to the headset via the connected HDMI cable?
Oppo
Member
stretching is done via physical lens... the PS4 does send a "combo" stereo image/frame, as I understand it, sort of like anamorphic. it is the most straightforward way.
Theonik
Member
Depending on the optics used, the game needs to distort the rendered image to compensate for fish-eye and chromatic aberration from the HMD. Of course, the TV view could just be the distorted image. In fact any other way would probably introduce latency.