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Sony Project Morpheus PS4 VR headset eyes up Oculus Rift

Sony wants you to take the blue pill and jump into the Matrix with Project Morpheus, a virtual reality headset for the PlayStation 4 to take on Oculus Rift.

Richard Trenholm Former Movie and TV Senior Editor
Richard Trenholm was CNET's film and TV editor, covering the big screen, small screen and streaming. A member of the Film Critic's Circle, he's covered technology and culture from London's tech scene to Europe's refugee camps to the Sundance film festival.
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Richard Trenholm

Sony wants you to take the blue pill and jump into the Matrix with Project Morpheus, a virtual reality gaming headset for the PlayStation 4 that takes on VR rival the Oculus Rift.

Officially announced today, Project Morpheus involves a visor packed with inertial sensors that detect the movement of your head, so when you turn your head you also look around in the virtual game world. Basically, it's the virtual reality we were promised back in the 1990s -- but the blocky Tron-style graphics of old-timey VR is replaced by 1080p graphics over a 90-degree field of view.

As well as the visuals, Morpheus includes three dimensional sound, so noises sound different depending where you're standing in the virtual world and which way you're looking, just like in the real world. Meanwhile your PlayStation controller lets you hold things, presumably meaning swords and guns and the like. 

Sony's been working on the headset for more than three years. 

For now, only developers will be able to try out Morpheus as they build games that take advantage of the VR technology. There's no word on when you'll be able to buy a Morpheus headset of your own.

Virtual reality has returned to the news largely thanks to Oculus VR, which partly crowdfunded the Rift headset, set to go on sale later this year or early in 2015.