After a lot of experience with VR/AR, for me it's come down to:
- Comfort
- Quality
I've yet to use a headset I'd wear for 8 hours a day without leading a rebellion against my torturers forcing me to after a few weeks.
I've also yet to use a headset that is at a quality such that it has a similar visual and presence fidelity to the real world (though this is getting closer).
When it's comfortable enough to wear for hours and hours on end and it looks sharp enough I don't care I'm wearing a headset, I'll spend a lot of time there.
I'd thought it would move faster when there was hope it could piggyback on mobile phone subsidies from carriers, but once that was clear it wasn't going to be the case it was quite evident we were talking about ~7 year legitimate hardware cycles.
I think it's just comfort honestly, quality isn't what keeps me away.
I actually kind of miss Google cardboard. A very light and open feeling but somewhat rubbish headset would be preferable to having to strap one of these huge things onto my face. My current headset is lighter than the Apple one and it's hard to imagine something even heavier.
Maybe some people just won't be bothered by it, but my maximum tolerance is somewhere well shy of 2 hours a day, and I wouldn't ever use it unless 3d was the point (like, I can't imagine ever using something in this form factor to view a movie or perform normal productivity tasks).
If I think about VR, I didn't thought 'i want to stare at a display ' I thought 'i can move around in a world without limits which includes motion, touch, perhaps sex, etc.
What we now have is just gimmicky.
I have a nice reality, there is no relevant upscale at all to use a virtual sub quality experience every day.
And for 3.5k you get plenty of wall color and tools and nice things to make your environment nicer
And yes I do have a projector at home for 10 years. It's easy and was cheap (700$ 10 years ago 720p)
- Comfort - Quality
I've yet to use a headset I'd wear for 8 hours a day without leading a rebellion against my torturers forcing me to after a few weeks.
I've also yet to use a headset that is at a quality such that it has a similar visual and presence fidelity to the real world (though this is getting closer).
When it's comfortable enough to wear for hours and hours on end and it looks sharp enough I don't care I'm wearing a headset, I'll spend a lot of time there.
We're probably 2 more hardware generations away.