Editor’s letter

I’ve been hearing a lot of talk lately about the failure of next-gen consoles to deliver the revolutionary experiences people were hoping for. To that I say, can everyone please just chill out and have a little patience? We can already see the mind-blowing, game-changing stuff coming over the horizon and if you don’t believe me then you clearly haven’t been paying attention.

Sony’s Project Morpheus is exciting. Really exciting. It has the potential to become one of those pieces of tech we look back on in ten or twenty years and point to its release as the moment everything changed. A small part of my excitement stems from the fact that Morpheus has clearly been a part Sony’s plans for PlayStation 4 all along. This is no last minute addition. The mysterious light bar located on the back of the PS4 controller had everyone guessing at its purpose, but it’s there for Morpheus. Sony is not half-arsing this. The lion’s share of my excitement stems from the simple fact that we’re now on the verge of having glorious 1080p virtual reality gaming in our homes. This is not some gimmick nobody asked for (cough, Kinect, cough). Immersive virtual reality is something we’ve wanted since before The Lawnmower Man tried and failed to scare us off it. Take a moment to think about that and I dare you not to get excited.

In-home VR gaming isn’t a one-horse race, either. Sure, some of the enthusiasm for Oculus Rift waned when Oculus VR was bought out by Facebook (for US$2 billion no less). But with money like that being thrown around it’s a safe bet there are some grand plans in motion and we’re not ones to underestimate Zuckerberg’s ambition. Plus, Microsoft owns a small but not insignificant share in Facebook, so who knows what kind of Xbox-Oculus partnership could appear down the line?

Even if the next 18 months remains VR-free, there’s plenty to keep us busy in the meantime. To learn more about the future of gaming head to our E3 special on p39.

Enjoy the issue.