The PS4’s DualShock 4 controller features a colour-changing light, and although it can now be dimmed in settings, there’s no way of turning it off completely. Sony stayed quiet on the matter for a long while, as people complained about the reflection on the screen, but now they’ve broke their silence on why it’s there.
It wasn’t just a gimmicky (but smart) way for developers to bring you into the game further with different colours representing different things, nor was it purely for Move-style tracking. No, it’s there because it needs to be for Project Morpheus.
“The tracking light… it was our department that said we need that on,” said Sony Computer Entertainment Europe’s senior designer, Jed Ashforth, when speaking to TechRadar. “It was for tracking for VR.”
“And when all these things were coming out six months ago and everyone was going ‘it’s reflecting in my TV,’ we were going ‘oh no’ because we couldn’t tell anyone what it was for.”
So, Project Morpheus will need the tracking light to work, and that gives us a bit more insight into how it’s going to work – it’s likely that it’ll take your hand movements as well as head movements into account, making an even better VR experience.
tonyyeb
As good as Morpheus is probably going to be, that is a very poor reason. Why can’t it just be turned on when Morpheus is in use?
3shirts
Exactly this. Surely the PS4 will know when the Morpheus headset is in use and can just force the light on.
leeroye
Totally agree, sounds like a bull*@*@ excuse to me.
cc_star
Easy to solve
If lightbar set to off & no Morpheus recognised as connected then turn light off, if light set to off but a Morpheus is recognised then turn lightbar on
blast71
Don’t be silly, that’s too logical. ;p
Kennykazey
This, 100 %! And if Sony felt like being intelligent, they’d apply a similar system to the controllers motion-sensors and rumble. Solving the battery complaints for everyone with a simple patch.
(that is if they’ve been clever enough to have built switches for this in the first place…)
Kovacs
Yeah, this is a weird excuse. I get why they need the light on for Morpheus but this is 2014, can’t they just do a check at boot.
“Sup, PlayStation fan, we see you’ve got a doohickey strapped to your head and you want to go all VR and shit. Not going to happen until you go back into settings and turn that DS4 light back on, you savage. Actually, want us to just reactivate it now? Yes | No.”
Done.
Paranoimia
Still doesn’t really make sense. They’ve said previously that it can be turned off by developers if they want to. And since most games won’t be using Morpheus, why not default to ‘off’ unless a camera or Morpheus is connected?
Just to be clear, I’m only saying what I see to be a logical solution. I’m not one of those bothered by the reflection or perceived battery life issues.
Root Ginger
Why can’t they just be honest and say that the light remains on because it’s part of the look and style of the controller. It’s obvious this is the real reason it can’t be turned off. Sony want the controller to be instantly recognisable and the light bar is part of that.
blarty
It’s not an issue for me, and I’d wager for most people, in the grand scheme of things, if they really thought about it, it’s not really an issue foe them either.
Broonba
What he said ^^
3shirts
It is an issue. Sometimes in the dark sections of games it is really obvious and spoils the immersion. Sure it’s not exactly life or death but it is a silly problem that should be easy to resolve.
2ofclubs
It really isn’t this killer deal that people are making out especially since the last update. The dim setting doesn’t illuminate dark rooms like it used to so I see no problem. I’m sure it’ll inevitably be turned off because people whinge enough about it.
MikLSP
I’ve never seen it reflect on my screen because I neither have a mirror as a TV nor live in a deep cave devoid of all other light.
Seeing as I never notice what the light is doing, I dimmed the brightness to minimum to see if the controller battery lasted longer.
It will be interesting to see what else it gets used for but it sounds like Move-esque tracking doesn’t it.
a inferior race
For me my TV screen is fine, but the frame reflect the light. Which is kinda distracting
MikLSP
Ah good point, I hadn’t actually thought of that. I suppose there are a lot of TVs with a glossy surround
NotSmartEnough
It’ll be interesting to see how this affects immersion for VR games. If it can be used for semi-accurate hand tracking which your in-game avatar mimics then it could really help to create the sense of presence.
Sorry, I went a bit off-topic there: what I many to say was “damn you Sony with your stupid lightbar, how dare you squander precious milliwatts on an LED”!
RudeAwakening
Wow! All the complaints over something so small in the scheme of things. I say stop sitting on your tele while playing and there won’t be a reflection! :p I’m playing outlast at the moment and thats quite a dark game and not once have I noticed the lightbar reflecting on my tv.
rob_b
It uses more power than you might imagine, there’s a thread on neogaf about it and the extra life from disabling the leds ranges from about 2hrs and up (when i last read it)
camdaz
Looking forward to finding out more about Morpheus, hopefully Sony will give more details at E3.