Surround sound is a great parallel, and I'm glad you brought that up. Some people think games/movies/tv aren't nearly as good without it, and will pour thousands of dollars into an amazing home audio experience, but the vast majority of people are quite content with their TV speakers or a soundbar because its cheaper than a 5.1 or 7.1 surround sound system and the difference isn't worth it for them. Surround sound has existed for decades, and it has always, always been niche, no matter what advancements have been made, or how cheap surround sound systems get. But here's the thing. Surround sound is built in to pretty much every game engine, requires little -to-no effort from developers to fully support it, and it doesn't exactly require an immense amount of system resources to run, and most importantly, it actually has the potential to enhance the experience of every single game that supports it in a meangingful way. Something like a car blowing up behind you and hearing that explosion behind you adds a level of realism. But VR doesn't have that luxury. There are many games where VR is utterly pointless, like any non-first person games like GTA or Assasin's Creed, or sports games, or more casual games. It's a complete waste of time for titles like that because any type of "enhancement" you can think or making isn't actually going to make those games meaningfully more fun to play.
If you don't like that example, use Racing Wheel controllers for PCs/consoles as another example and look into how affordable they've become, and how most people who love racing games and play them regularly still aren't willing to buy a wheel, and many popular racing games have very limited racing wheel support, if any, even though racing wheels have been available for decades. Yet, there's people, like you, that will no longer play racing games without a wheel because how how "old fashioned" it feels. it doesn't change the fact that racing wheels, no matter how long they've been on the market, will always be a niche product because it has such limited appeal.
I have to disagree with you on the point that VR is pointless for non first person games. 3rd person works very well. The ability to freely look around and the high fov do enhance the experience without any further changes needed. The 3D effect helps with accuracy for jumps etc, and the sense of scale helps put everything in perspective in your mind. Actually for me it has pushed different genres back into my interests, it does make them more fun to play.
3rd person has mostly been a crutch, neccesary to solve the situational awareness problems that come with the low fov of first person games on a screen. It can still help in VR to dampen motion sickness problems, but it isn't neccesary anymore. You are much more aware of what happens around you. Rush of blood wouldn't even work on a traditional screen as half the targets and attacks would be out of view.
Btw surround sound doesn't do anything for 2D platformers, yet I'm excited to see how the lost bear turns out. An immersive 2D platformer for VR.
Other games I look forward too are Moss and Star Child. I'm very curious about those. First I'll check out how SuperHot translated to VR. And then there's Skyrim to see how well it works with existing games. (I have now worries, RE7 worked beautifully, yet I haven't played that on tv to compare)
You bring up racing wheels, yet those are like the name says, only for racing games. VR works for many more genres and is more comfortable to use too imo. I haven't bothered with racing wheels as I like to sit comfortably, feet up, change position now and then. VR has no problem with that. The only issues are when you have a motion tracked game and the arm rests get in the way. Which is also why I think roomscale has little future, or is a niche of a niche. Room scale stuff was fun in the beginning yet now I avoid that. I don't want to stand or wander around with a headset on. It's very cool as an introduction to VR yet that novelty wears off. RE7, Farpoint work great while seated after you get used to analog turning in VR in coordination with your head movements.
At the end of the day, I just want to sit down and relax. A headset lets me look around, and is more comfortable than staring at a screen in front of me. I won't use it to watch tv though. I tried and while the quality is quite good, the screen is too big and it's hard to drink and snack with a headset on!
I have no clue how limited the appeal is though. For me, it's the only 'enhancement' I'm still excited about almost a year of use later. Everything before it like 3D, racing wheels, eye toy / ps eye, wii motes, balance board games, move, didn't last for more than a few months at most.
Again... with those third person games, the enhancements you're discussing are very subtle and aren't going to make a meaningful difference to the average gamer. Pretty much every console gamer on this planet would rather save the cost of a VR headset than "miss out" on those enhancements. They just won't give a shit enough to go out and plunk down for one. They'll say "that's neat, but not $200 neat", and move on. Let's be honest, the vast majority of the appeal of VR is for first person games, this is obvious. If you're going to show off to a friend how great of an experience VR can be, and truly wow them, Lost Bear isn't going to make them go out and buy one. That's why it's similar to the racing wheel, because it's expensive technology, really only appeals to one type of game, and is really only adopted by hardcore enthuiasts. VR is niche, and always will be. Gaming on a TV/monitor will always be cheaper and close enough for the vast majority of gamers
Yes, Surround Sound doesn't do anything for 2D games. Thank fuck this is 2017 and 1987, and 99% of games are no longer 2D. Besides, what does that even matter? I don't think anyone has gone to the store looking at speakers for their home theater and thought "This'll make all of my movies, tv shows, and pretty much all of my games more immersive, but it won't enhance LittleBigPlanet, so that's a hard pass for me". Besides, surround sound still meangingfully enhances far more games than VR ever will, will likely always be more expensive than surround sound, and still most gamers couldn't give enough of a shit about the enhanced experience surround sound makes to actually go out and buy a surround sound system, and they won't be bothered to go by a VR solution either. That's my point.
