Sony's Project Morpheus to Use OLED Displays

Morpheus, the Oculus Rift-like prototype headset from Sony is part of a ambitious future that Sony envisions for PlayStation 4 and potentially beyond. Like Oculus Rift (recently purchased by Facebook), Sony believes that Morpheus can bring an entirely new type of gaming to PlayStation while also enhancing current games with a degree of immersion not seen before. Part of that is by creating the illusion that you as the gamer are in that world. To help achieve that, you need all the visual quality that your eye can handle and what better to provide this visual fidelity than an OLED display?

Project Morpheus in its current incarnation uses an LCD display with a max out of 1080p (1920 x 1280), much like the PS4. The Oculus Rift also utilizes the same resolution though their headset is equipment with an OLED screen, ensuring that colors are much more vivid and vibrant when compared to an LCD screen. Not to be outdone, recent reports point to Sony transitioning to an OLED display with 2560 x 1440 resolution when Morpheus is released as a consumer product. Starting in 2105, Sony along with Panasonic will be forming JOLED, a new joint venture to product medium sized OLED displays in mobile devices.

While it remains unclear when Morpheus will actually launch (and don’t be surprised if it’s still at least 2 years away), it’s encouraging to hear that the final model will incorporate OLED over LCD displays. Sony most recently offered a new iteration of the PS Vita which incorporates LCD over the standard OLED display and the quality difference is quite apparent. Then again, the problem with VR headset is the cost associated with them and choosing OLED over LCD will only tack on to the final price tag. Here’s hoping to that OLED production costs drop along side of VR development.