Brett Molina

news

Sony has entered the virtual reality business.

The electronics giant unveiled Project Morpheus, a virtual reality headset for the PlayStation 4 video game console, during an event at this week's Game Developers Conference in San Francisco.

Sony says Project Morpheus will be available in a "future commercial launch," but did not specify release dates.

"Project Morpheus is the latest example of innovation from SCE, and we're looking forward to its continued development and the games that will be created as development kits get into the hands of content creators," says Shuhei Yoshida, President of Sony Computer Entertainment Worldwide Studios, in a statement.

Project Morpheus features a head-mounted display that works with the PlayStation Camera. The headset includes "3-D audio technology" allowing players to hear sounds from all perspectives, even above and below the player's vantage point. The headset is also compatible with the motion-based PlayStation Move.

Sony is demonstrating Morpheus with a handful of games at GDC, including stealth game Thief, intergalactic dogfighting shooter EVE Valkyrie and The Deep, which places players underwater inside a shark proof cage.

Sony is the first big player to jump into virtual reality, a hot topic in the video game industry since the arrival of the highly-praised Oculus Rift. Last December, Rift makers Oculus VR announced it had secured $75 million in funding to prepare for a potential consumer launch. Oculus has not said when it would release Rift to the public.

Earlier this week, The Wall Street Journal reported Microsoft has already filed one patent as part of development of its own virtual reality headset.

Follow Brett Molina on Twitter: @bam923.