Project Morpheus
A staff of Sony Computer Entertainment poses with Play Station 4's virtual reality headset Project Morpheus at its booth in Tokyo Game Show 2014 in Makuhari, east of Tokyo September 18, 2014. About 421 companies and organizations are participating in the Tokyo Games Show 2014, which will be held until September 21. Reuters/Yuya Shino

Sony's Project Morpheus is now referred to as the PlayStation VR. It is speculated that the renaming of the company's virtual reality handset was brought about by the fact that the device is nearing its official launch.

CNET has pointed out that virtual reality has now become a fad in entertainment, especially with interactive 360-degree gaming. Various tech companies have been cashing in on this industry ever since the crowdfunded Oculus Rift VR headset revived the public's interest in virtual reality.

HTC now has its own virtual reality headset, and Google came up with a jockey cardboard visor that could work with a smartphone to immerse its user into games and short movies. Taking a look at the gaming market today, it looks like the Project Morpheus from Sony is the very first to bring out a virtual reality helmet that can connect its user to a gaming console.

Sony took to Twitter to inform its fans and followers about this news, after the official announcement was made at the Tokyo Game Show. Interestingly, Sony made the announcement by using a video of people who were enjoying some of today's newest virtual reality games.

Male players were fighting gangsters in "London Heist." They only had to point the controller's Move hand to aim and shoot their weapons. Meanwhile, female players explored the deep blue sea, fending off massive sharks, in "The Deep."

Before Sony's device was dubbed PlayStation VR, the device's original name - Morpheus - was actually inspired by the ancient Greek god of dreams. Although this sounds very interesting, this is not the first uniquely fun code name to be scrapped in favour of a new name that is reportedly more suitable for a mainstream release. There are occasions, though, that these cool code names actually do stay.

For instance, Cortana, which was named after the in-game voice that guides "Halo" players, was kept as the name of Microsoft's digital personal assistant.

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