Facebook's Oculus acquisition validates Sony's Project Morpheus

Facebook's recent acquisition of Oculus VR for $2 billion validates Sony's own virtual reality headset, Project Morpheus, according to the President of Sony Computer Entertainment's Worldwide Studios, Shuhei Yoshida.

Speaking to Polygon, Yoshida said the Facebook acquisition came as a surprise to Sony, but it is glad that it happened because it indicates that Sony is on the right track with Project Morpheus.

"We thought we were going to validate Oculus with Project Morpheus, but it turns out Oculus is now validating us," Yoshida said.

He told Polygon that validation isn't what's important, though, and Facebook bringing Oculus to a broader audience is good for everyone making virtual reality headsets. He said Sony doesn't see Project Morpheus as being in competition with Oculus, because the two benefit from each other: the PC shares enough similarities with the PlayStation 4 that a developer building a game with Oculus support for PC could likely bring it to PS4.

Sony announced Project Morpheus at the Game Developers Conference in March. The virtual reality headset, which is still in prototype form, will bring gaming and non-gaming software to the PS4.

"Virtual reality is the next innovation from PlayStation that will [shape] the future of games," Yoshida said during the press conference announcing the headset. "We believe Morpheus will further enhance the world of PlayStation 4, with seamless integration with PlayStation Camera and PlayStation Move."

CCP, developer of the Oculus co-published title EVE Valkyrie, confirmed during GDC that the dogfighting game would be playable on Project Morpheus.

Facebook announced its acquisition of Oculus VR for $2 billion in cash and stock in the week following GDC.