For people who don’t own a gaming PC, Sony is pitching its Project Morpheus virtual reality headset as the next best thing to an Oculus Rift. Those who have got their hands on an Oculus Rift strongly agree that it’s completely nailed virtual reality in video games, and Project Morpheus has impressed a lot of people, too.
However, the Oculus’ founder Palmer Luckey feels that those who see Project Morpheus as a competitor to his VR headset are misguided, and that Sony’s device will never be able to compete with the Oculus Rift.
Palmer said:
The Morpheus as it exists today is really pushing the limits of the PS4. And it’s still not as good as DK2. So as time goes on and the hardware gets better – PC hardware will get better, VR hardware will get better, resolution will go up, framerate will go up – and the PS4 will remain the same power as it is today. That’s true for any console. So even if they make a really great product today I think it’s going to have a hard time staying relevant in the virtual reality landscape as time goes on. Five years from now we’ll probably be on our second, third generation product and it’ll most likely be something… the PS4 could never even thrive.
It’s basically a side project for them right now. If they decided to invest a lot of money in it and release it as a product then it’s still limited to PS4. It’s not really a competitor to us because we’re not going to be on PS4 anyway. There are very few people who are going to say ‘should I get Oculus on PC or Morpheus on PS4 because I have both and I don’t know which one I’d rather have?’ A tiny number people are going to do that.
While this may initially seem as though Palmer is slamming the Project Morpheus, he’s essentially stating simple fact: the Project Morpheus won’t be able to compete with the Oculus Rift in the long run, much in the same way that consoles are incapable of keeping up to speed with the power of the PC. PC technology is constantly evolving and improving, whereas a console’s power remains stationary.
While I’ve no doubt that the Project Morpheus will find a sizable install base consisting of intrigued console owners, it simply can’t compete with the Oculus Rift in terms of longevity.
