Since the PlayStation 4’s launch in November last year, the light bar at the front of the Dualshock controller has been thought to be for motion control, but now it has been revealed it was designed with virtual reality (VR) in mind.
Jed Ashforth, senior designer at Sony Computer Entertainment Europe, told TechRadar the light bar at the front of the controller is so prominent because of Sony’s intentions of implementing its own VR technology and headset in the form of Project Morpheus to compete with the established Oculus Rift brand.
“The tracking light … it was our department that said we need that on. It was for tracking for VR,” Ashforth said.
“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.”
Thousands of PS4 owners have been grumbling about the inability to turn off the light bar, which leads to a drain on battery power.
The first games to implement Project Morpheus are expected to be released in 2015.
