VR always seems to be just 5 years away.

I'm starting to come around to the idea that it's here now and the size of the market is just pretty much what it's going to be.

It might be longer than five years, but the market has massive potential. I've owned a bunch of headsets, and I demo them to anyone who wants to try one. The reactions go like this: initial shock and awe (more and more so as the tech has improved), followed by childlike glee and fascination. I've shown skeptics an Apollo 11 recreation, telling them to just try it for five minutes, and no one has spent less than an hour yet.

They come out amazed and wondering why these aren't everywhere. Then they ask how much it costs (~$4000) and their excitement vanishes.

You can get a setup for much less than that now, but it's blurrier, slower, uglier, more nauseating, and lacks important features like finger tracking. It won't be smartphone-level for a long time, if ever, but once the tech reaches affordable levels, I'm convinced there will be a larger audience.

Out of curiosity, what $4000 VR setup are you showing people?

Valve Index $1k

Vive trackers $300

2080 Ti $1200 (I suppose I should count this by its new "low" price, but I got it early)

Overclocked i7-6700k and high end motherboard, closed loop cooler with better fans, ssds, psu, case, ram etc ~$1400

= ~$3900

The important parts are the Index, the 2080 Ti, and a CPU with high single-thread performance. If you lose the trackers (more trouble than they're worth, really) and go more budget on the other parts you can put together something equivalent for under $3000, but not by much.

I would guess Vive Pro/Valve Index with an expensive PC and a bunch of accessories.

VR (and AR) is amazing to demo. I had the reactions you listed the first time I played the blocky pterodactyl game in 1991.

If they can get rid of the headset requirement, then I think the potential is almost limitless.

Honestly, so far I am convinced that VR will be the next 3D TV or google glass... a fad.

It will make users go "wow" at first, then they toy a little with it, then recognize that there just isn't that much great stuff you can actually do with it (as a recreational user) especially considering how clumsy and annoying the gear is and will remain for the foreseeable future.

Sure, it will still have a following, and there still will be current and new special purposes where the technology actually makes sense, but I cannot imagine it will see true wide adoption on smartphone or even TV scale.

Have you tried VR?

Glass & 3D TV never added anything meaningful to the mix. They were just extensions of technology that already existed. VR entirely changes the paradigm of how we interact with computers.

Even if it's "only" VR gaming that takes off, that is an entirely new medium of storytelling for artists to explore. We don't see those often.

Remember that DOOM was more popular than Windows - games are often all the system seller you need.

There's no way VR is just a fad. It's unimaginable that our interface with electronics is going to be a 2D screen forever.

Yeah, it's clumsy and annoying now, but I don't think it'll be for much longer. The Quest is super usable already.

VR is a fundamentally different technology than both 3d TV and Glass (which is very successful in industry, and AR in general will be very valuable in those applications going forward).

Yes, Glass and the few competitors are somewhat successful in industry. That's what I meant with "special purposes"

Still the number of units sold are probably reported in 10Ks or 100Ks not in millions let alone billions of units.

AR might be the winner. In addition to the clunkiness of the gear that you mentioned, it's a bit disorienting (and sometimes unsafe) to be removed from your present environment.