VR's here to stay, but its going to be more or less permanently an enthusiast thing, up there with eye tracking, flight sticks, or racing wheel and pedal setups, shit that 99% of people will consider to be worthless.
Corporate metaversing was doomed and was almost entirely down to everyone and their dog wanting to be able to classify themselves as a tech company for that sweet sweet valuation bump, but not actually having any real idea how to use it. Just didn't want to be left behind.
Consumer VR's been a more interesting problem, because on the technical side, nearly all of the problems are solved. The Quest headset shows irrefutably that you can have a self contained, reasonably good looking, reasonably affordable VR device suited for the masses. But what we've found over the last decade of development on the software side of things, is that most experiences and activities are not better in VR. 'Full immersion home theater' sucks because I can't see anything else, so good luck having popcorn or a drink with your movie, much less watching with another person beside you. VR gaming quickly found out that there's only a relatively limited selection of genres that can really benefit from VR, and VR gaming as a whole is inherently niche regardless of game or genre - Most people who want to game are doing so to unwind and relax, not sweat up a headset stomping on their apartment floor for three hours, spinning in circles and fighting whatever limited walk/turn space they even have available. Furthermore, VR practically demands some level of simulation, and by extension learning and understanding by the player. Pressing a reload button in VR is inherently unsatisfying and lame, as is not being able to interact with shit around you. But, making things more involved and interactible comes with the expectation of knowing how and when to use them, and for the game to teach you as much.
While a select handful of experiences simply cannot be replicated outside of VR (H3, B&S) the majority are just subpar compared to regular 2d games, and are entirely unsuitable to a majority of gamers needs/wants. Bringing costs down on headsets, making them more comfortable or less facebook invested to use can help some, but they'll never get anywhere close to dominant systems in the market. VR will likely continue to go the way of flight sims, with dedicated, expensive hardware and software for the hardcore enthusiasts of their relevant niches, and cheap accessories for software that technically support it, but don't really invest in building around it. Even if you got the hardware down to contact lenses and a pair of thin tracking gloves, it won't solve those problems.
AR on the other hand, I don't think will survive. Its all the problems of VR regarding cost and "Is this actually any better than my X for this use case" combined with looking like a clown and a hearty level of social stigma attached to it, for a device explicitly marketed to be worn out and about with others. There's no need to augment reality at home.
Was the whole hook just that they were smaller? Did you have to buy a different player for them? I literally didn't know anyone who owned one of those.
