Morpheus Targeting $249-299 Price; Sony’s Studios Working on “Absolutely Fantastic” Things According to Insider

Giuseppe Nelva March 19, 2014 12:26 PM EST

Industry insider Ahsan Rasheed has been talking about Project Morpheus for a while, and since the new VR headset has finally been announced and the gag has been removed, today he’s been sharing a lot of the information he’s been given by his usually reliable sources.

Sony mentioned that the headset will be “affordable,” but that’s quite vague. So how affordable will it be? Rasheed’s information on the topic is so surprising that even he cautions that things may still change between here and the hardware’s release:

One final thing I’ve heard over the last few months and things can change so don’t hold me to this forever. Morpheus is targeting a $249-299 price point. And yes, I have told this to @roboplato many moons ago before this thing was even a thing.

The price seems even more convenient considering that according to Rasheed’s sources the package will come bundled with the camera (even if I’m personally quite sure that there’ll be a separate option for those that already have the camera itself):

Morpheus will include camera I’ve heard. The product when launched will have everything ready to go.

Rasheed also explained that Sony is going all-in with Project Morpheus, and isn’t just going to give it half-hearted support like it happened with the PlayStation Move or the EyeToy:

BTW this isn’t Move or EyeToy, Sony is very serious and major internal teams are doubling down. This isn’t a novelty. Sony wants to prove to gamers that PlayStation is gaming. Internal teams are working on things that are absolutely fantastic.

Such a low price point for a virtual reality headset sounds almost crazy, especially considering that the new version of the Oculus Rift will cost $350 and Sony’s own HMZ-T3W Head Mounted Display is priced at $1,000, but many would have said the same about the PS4 being sold at $399 before its price was actually announced last June. That said, we definitely should consider this just a rumor for the moment.

We’ll have to wait and see if Sony will manage to sell the Morpheus at such a bargain price. One thing is for sure, that kind of affordability would definitely drive adoption, and technology like Morpheus lives or dies on its adoption by customers. If Sony wants virtual reality to really take off, they’ll have to keep the price down, or it’ll end like stereoscopic 3D did during last generation.