Even without the Playstation and Xbox brands, a hell of a lot of money has been poured into VR over the last 12-ish years and it's still the expensive novelty that it was in 2012 with almost all of the same downsides. Even Apple couldn't make it appealing to their army of mindless sycophants.
I find the idea that VR could've saved consoles extremely hard to believe.
They treated it like a new revenue stream [edit: as in they wanted money NOW!! without the investment or strategy plan] or cashcow idea where they could pour in money, randomly, without thought, and have maximum return of investment.
How the companies invested was fucking retarded. Sony did the best, but fucked it because they're retarded.
Facebook - Locked Oculus behind a facebook account and nobody wants to touch anything facebook related due to privacy and ownership issues.
Apple - $3500 for a headset that is behind a walled garden.
Google cardboard - Why even bother.
Nintendo - Glue a switch to your face
Playstation - VR 1 was brilliant if not technologically limited. PSVR2 is the best of the best but unsupported because Sony are fucking retards.
HTC - Valve default headset, like Sony, wasn't supported.
VR failed on two fronts:
1) The hardware - Instead of forming industry standards or some ideals of what a headset should be, the market was flooded with hundreds of variations, some stand-alone, some requiring specific hardware, which confused the market and the normies. Then wankstain companies like Facebook tried bringing out iterations a few years apart instead of considering what the best, long-term approach would be. The hardware was developed mostly by companies with 0 software/games backgrounds and all headsets were too expensive.
2) The software. Retardation across the industry. Few of the most popular games were given VR treatments, often leaving it to mods and fan projects and the ones that were given official treatment were often half-arsed.
Valve not offering DOTA, Half-Life, Left 4 Dead and TF official VR remakes/modes was criminal. Sony ignoring their big IPs like Killzone, Haze, Wipeout and Destiny. EA not creating Battlefield VR (NO VR JETS OR TANK WARS? WTF EA), Star wars VR or Apex legends. No COD VR by Activision.
Retardation across the industry to not support VR with even token attempts from the biggest IPs.
Sony and Valve had the hardware, IPs and software studios to make sure that VR would have survived. In doing so, Valve would have owned PCVR and Sony Console VR. Valve are too lazy and Sony are too incompetent.
VR could have been a new area for autists and small teams to program fun, unique and short experiences - the ideal style of game to play on VR, sold for cheap to offset the cost of the hardware, and could have raked in constant revenue for Sony and Valve.
It wouldn't have replaced consoles or PCs, but would have become a breeding ground for small teams/devs to show off their talents before making AAA VR experiences or moving over to flat screen games. Low-risk, high-reward gaming for both consumers and companies, similar to the 'indy' scene we saw a decade or so ago.
