The Wii was a divisive console to say the least. In the face of expensive HD powerhouses like the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, it was an underpowered Standard definition console built on the input of Motion Control with the Wii Remote and Nunchuck. Poor early implementations, and a lack of AAA game support led to may "hardcore" gamers writing it off as a gimmick. Yet despite this, it sits at 100 million units sold worldwide, making it Nintendo's best selling Home Console to date. And its unique controller design laid the Ground work for one particular market, Virtual Reality. VR as a concept had always been envisioned since the 16-bit days. Even Nintendo tried a crude version of it with the Ill-fated Virtual Boy. But back when the concept was just a thought bubble, Motion Control was never really thought to be a control input used for it, and if it was, was probably thought to be in the form of some impractical gloves or something.

Even when Motion Control was done right on Consoles like the Wii or PlayStation 3 with its Move controller, it never really found an audience with the mainstream hardcore gamer, who stuck with their classic control layouts. That was, until VR came along. With headsets like the Occulus Rift, and PlayStation VR popping up, the idea of a motion sensitive split-controller made perfect sense. VR is all about immersion, and so it needs a control input that can make the player feel immersed in the Virtual world, and since the Wii had 6 years on the market, there was already a blueprint for a controller design to build off of. You get the immersion and versatility of motion controls, with the tactile hardware and button inputs of a physical device. Thus, the split motion control setup became standard for VR. Call the Wii an over-hyped gimmick if you will, it did lead to one of the most interesting developments this generation. And whatever the Wii was or promised to be, much of it still lives on in the land of VR.

Pretty big stretch, also, the Wii was a long ways off of being the first motion controller. So no, Wii did not influence VR. If you want to pick something that really influence VR, I would say the eye toy for the ps2.

The Eye Toy is pretty different. Unlike the Wii or VR, it had no physical inputs, just gesture based controls using your body. It's more a prototype Kinect if anything. The Wii Remote was one of the first controllers to combine gesture-based inputs, with the physical buttons and hardware of a controller.

There's a lot more in modern VR than just the motion controls.

That's almost basically the afterthought of VR,the creators of the VR headsets deserve more credit than that. Plus VR headsets came about a good while after the whole motion control thing died.

Regardless of if Motion Control is just one aspect, It's still motion control. The standard controller for VR is essentially a motion controller. It's not dead if its still being used in this area, so Nintendo does deserve some credit for creating a controller design that was ideal for VR, IE, the split-motion controller.

Not really, Those controllers are just currently the cheapest way to have two hands in VR. Valve Knuckles is step forward in that regard, giving detection of every finger and solving the problem of fully letting controller go, and of course there is, as always, elusive quest for making commercially viable VR gloves with feedback,

You are basically arguing an apple is better than another apple.  They are both gesture based inputs.  Eye toy at least put you into its creations via augmented reality which obviously a huge precursor to vr.  Also, every vr setup needs a sensor or camera like the eye toy to be able to detect you.  There is definitely more of a connection there then the Wii remote.  Also, the Wii remote was not one of the first controllers to combine gesture with physical buttons.  Maybe one of the first to find mainstream success... but that technology had been around for a very long time.  

Sony has been building towards VR since the PS2. It all started with EyeToy. Then they improved upon EyeToy by adding the Move controllers with PS3. PS3 also brought Stereoscopic 3D, which is yet another part of VR. Finally with PS4 they brought all of these technologies together as PSVR.

PS2
-EyeToy

PS3
-Imrpoved Camera
-Motion Controls
-Stereoscopic 3D

PS4
-Improved Camera
-Motion Controls
-Stereoscopic 3D
-Head Mounted Display with Motion Tracking

From here on out it will be more improvements within the Tracking of the Headset, Inputs, and Eyes. We will get Higher Resolutions with better rendering techniques. Wireless HMD.

I don't see the Wii playing too big of a part in the development of VR. The techniques learned with Wii and even PS Move do not translate well to VR. I would say Wii was a very small building block, amoung many other much more significant contributors.

The Wiimote actually works in a similar fashion. The controller has a camera hidden behind an IR filter, and that's what's used in conjunction with the sensor bar, which is little more than a reference point of ten IR LEDs to give it its pointing functionality. VR works the same way except in reverse, the camera is the reference point, and the IR LEDs are on the controller.

Name a device that did what the Wii Remote did before the Wii, that wasn't the Eye Toy (which again, had no physical inputs).

Virtual Boy did it first.