Yeah, the myth of "thousands of dollars for PC" is very much alive and kicking around here...which is starting to be quite absurd.

Still, for recommended Oculus specs you do need $900-1000 PC...plus probably some $400 for Oculus.

Much of the kinects that where sold were just bundled with the Xbox 360. In terms of actual kinects sold (as in not bundled), that figure is considerably less. The Kinect also proved to be a major strategic blunder for the Xbox division (as in case the XB1). Its way the Xbox One has to fight defensively for sales, while the PS4 is doing much better (not saying the Xbox One is doing badly). And I willl note its not easy saying this, especially since I've always prefered Xbox and I am a bit of an Xbox fanboy.

But like I said, we'll wait and see. Maybe it will be a huge success.

Well, to start with a $1k PC can play VR games. The min requirements for the Oculust Rift asks for a quad core CPU and a GTX 970 or an R9 290, and you can get that with less than $1k. And that PC will be able to run the VR games by itself.

And then there's the fact that the PS4 can't run VR games. It needs an aditional addon in the shape of the "external processing unit" that among other things will double the frames per second that the PS4 is capable to make (so its gets the frames 1 & 2 and creates and aditional frame between them) because the PS4 isn't able to run VR games at the needed frames per second to create the needed immersion and avoid nauseas.

So we're talking about a $900 PC + VR (headset) versus $350 PS4 + VR (headset + external processing unit). And that is today, by next X-mas the PS4 will probably be $300 but a VR capable PC will be around the $700 mark.

Don't get me wrong, the PS4 + VR combo will still be cheaper, but not by the margin you imply in your post.

Didn't know about PS4's external processing unit needed for vr.

These are the recommended requirements for the "full Rift experience", not the minimum requirements. I'm sure, there will be a lot of Oculus compatible games which will run okay with lower specs, especially VR Porn and VR-patched older games. ;)

https://www.oculus.com/en-us/oculus-ready-pcs/

While that might be true, the bundle did initially cost $100 more than the Kinect-less version (and if i remember correctly was limited to the 4GB model). Anyone that bought the bundle will have had to actively want a Kinect. 

The Kinect's life wasn't particularly long, and its successor's launch was royally screwed up, but for the 2.5~ year period between its launch and the 24 million figure being announced, i'd personally consider the original a pretty big success all in all.

Anyway, as far as VR HMD's go (and AR for that matter), once the tech, form factor, and price are all in the right place, i think their success is an inevitability. I'm not sure we've actually reached that sweet spot yet for VR (while the tech seems to have matured enough, at least based on the praise stuff like PlayStation VR and Oculus Rift have been getting in previews, i think the price in particular is likely still too high), eventually we'll get there. Or i'm totally wrong, and HMD's are doomed to forever be ignored :(

Even better!

Although I'm not sure you'll want to try VR on a PC that "just" meets the basic needs of VR.

I don't know about that but if it's all it's cracked up to be, it'll bring a resurgence of innovation and freshness that the industry hasn't seen since the early and mid 90's. I am old enough to remember the jump from 16 bits to 32 and even though things like 32X, Sega CD etc. didn't work out, it was still a much more exciting period in gaming because it was such an innovative time where companies were experimenting with new technology and trying to give us new ways to play games.

My pleasure.

The biggest problem for VR will be the price of the headset and its accessories, not the power to run it. And with AMD and Nvidia launching new and more powerful cards next year this 2016, that will be even less of a problem.