Funny, as I read through this, I can't help but realize that those who don't like VR are dead set on the idea that it is failing and those who like it can't help but believe it is the next 3D graphics card (a multi-billion dollar industry that BTW is a "gaming peripheral" that proves Howard's comments wrong, lol).
So if you don't like it, you think it will fail as a whole, and if you do, you are convinced it will be successful. It's like we are arguing politics here, lol. Everyone seems to think that the rest of the world thinks just like them and can't imagine that the people who don't agree make up more than a handful of blind fools. Since when are any of us industry analysts? BTW, the industry analysts convinced private investors to dump millions upon millions of dollars into R&D for VR. Software, hardware, and in every niche, nook, cranny, and alternative use they can find. In my opinion, when companies are dumping truckloads of money with
no immediate return, they are seeing something that a consumer who got sick using a cardboard VR hasn't seen.
As for PBJ's comment about the members here at BYOAC being mostly against it, what I see is a bunch of members who do their best to build cool cabs on shoestring budgets who *gasp* find that a $2k minimum investment to play in VR is too much. Howard might have invested thousands into games over the decades, but someone like me invested thousands in ONE CAB, and for over a decade, spent upward of $700 each year just to have the latest GPU. A person like me is the target consumer of high end VR, not someone who visits fast food joints just to scan a Coke code in hopes of making an extra $5 per week. Not saying that being frugal isn't cool, just that if you are that kind of frugal, you probably aren't the intended consumer of VR, at least not yet.
The thing is, at the stage VR technology is at, nobody here is wrong. There are some serious shortcomings in the current tech. And companies like Samsung are doing their best to cash out on it while bringing it a bad name. I do believe that VR has a solid future, just as I believed that when the first "flat screen" plasma sets hit the showroom floor at $50k (back in the mid 90's), I believed that this was the future of televisions. Yes, it took a decade just to get flat screens to where an average consumer would even consider buying one, and then it took another 15 years to get to where you can get a state of the art 4k UHD tv with all the bells and whistles for what I paid for a 13" color TV in 1985. But I can't predict if VR is the next big thing, and right now, it surely is NOT. So nobody here is wrong. Yet. Give it a decade, then rather than comparing a Vive to a VirtualBoy, you will be actually looking at meaningful trend data.
I will leave you with this:
https://www.sixflags.com/greatamerica/attractions/drop-doom-virtual-realityNot exactly a low budget thrill ride, but certainly a way to allow VR to enhance something already great. They aren't the only ones, augmented reality is one area where VR is making a strong impact in far more than the gaming industry.