Mummelmann said: 2.6 million, down to 750k and then barely or not making that number? Yeah, too costly, too soon, too poorly implemented in actual games, if only anyone could have predicted that VR wouldn't be a huge deal in 2016...

That 2.6 came from a random analyst site that was off the mark for all VR, not just PSVR. Sony never gave us their expectations. We do know that PSVR is constantly selling out though so it has to be doing better than they internally projected but let's just sweep that relevent information under the rug shall we? d:

That's because VR is a big deal. It always would have arrived "too soon" unless you had multiple media conglomerate/corporations magically agreeing to all at once push for VR. That wasn't gonna happen though, so instead we're getting the first wave of companies making the plunge and laying the groundwork moving forward. It is too soon, but that's out of necessity. Tech has reached a level where the end result has become acceptable to the consumer. It's only up from here

You aren't laying groundwork with failures, rather you are putting the entire idea on ice for a decade. That's about how long it takes until someone tries again.

What metric of failure do you use for something that's entirely new to the market? And after you answer that, by what metric could you even call VR a failure yet? What do we have to gauge against? Supply/demand obviously right? Because PSVR has been sold out nigh constantly months before it released leading up to this point in time now. It's sold out on Amazon US for instance.

Is VR a big deal? Global sales figures strongly disagree, and that's my whole point. For now, VR is having about the same impact as Kinect did on traditional gaming and all available VR sets between them have sold somewhere around 2 million through all of 2016, that's hardly earth-shattering by any measure.

VR isn't a sales incentive for console or PC gamers right now, and won't be for a few years when the hardware can actually utilize it properly and there's some actual implementation in traditional gaming. For now, VR is something quirky that you test in the store and tell your buddies about, but odds are that no one in this thread own a VR set, and won't any time soon. Groundwork? Perhaps, but there are no walls, roof, floors, electricity, plumbing or interior details yet, so it's far from a house, which is exactly the point I've been making all along. VR could very well be a major factor in a few years, but there is absolutely no reasoning that it is a major factor now, it's quite close to utterly irrelevant as it stands right now.

3D was also said to be the next big thing a few years back, but it flopped hard in the TV and DVD/blu-ray market and the demand for 3D in cinemas is not exactly sky high either, this is also mainly due to the fact that most 3D is quite poor, and thus has diminished value as a feature.

Groundwork being a satiable library size of games that pass the tipping point from a 'looks cool but nah' to an 'okay I need this now'. Groundwork being more clearly visible functionality that is spread across other markets. "Oh, this plays games, but I can use it for that, too?!" Same concept as a smart phone. "Oh I can use it as a phone but now I can choose apps that add more functionality". Now people have a reason to choose that over the archaic nokias we remember 10+ years ago because smart phones can do so much more today than before. Well, with VR a similar scenario would be first gen headsets playing games, but over time that same headset can be used to, for instance, participate in virtual reality house tours for people wanting to move across the country, or virtual reality porn which was a thing almost overnight, or on the job training exercises, or really about a million more creative, useful ideas that I'm not gonna take the time to list.

http://www.vrs.org.uk/virtual-reality-applications/

The difference in comparison to Kinect which was through and through a gimmick is that A) each console manufacturer had a different vision of motion sensing/controls. Wii Motes, PS Move, Kinect. All different. No standard, all competing with each other. Instantly there's a stark contrast with VR which already has standards and a board in place. 

But yes, VR is a big deal. I can see that clearly now, it may not be a massive overnight success but it absolutely is a big deal which is obvious considering mankind has created fiction around the device decades before it actually existed. 

VR isn't new to the market, there was a push in the 90's that failed hard. Same with 3D, it has had several attempts at becoming a factor both in movies and gaming and still hasn't quite succeeded. VR has come and gone once before, if 2017 isn't a whole lot kinder to it, most developers are likely to ignore it more or less completely until more capable hardware makes the mainstream. Most signs point towards still remaining a niche device that stores demo but very few will drop a rather ludicrous premium on.

As someone else has pointed out; being sold out tells only half the story, the first shipments go to pre-orders, and 750k is not a big amount for a peripheral belonging on a platform with over 50 million users. What do you think the demand is, realistically? Seeing the sales figures for the more expensive VIVE and Occulus Rift, it seems like PSVR is performing more or less at the level that can best be expected for its price point, I seriosuly doubt that there is any huge pent up demand.

Even the Wii U has been outsold a couple of times, but there was hardly a stampede of crazy customers flowing in when it became readily available again.

Why are we even having this discussion? We both seem to be saying that VR has a future, but that it will take time. I've literally been saying all along that VR is irrelevant right now, for a multitude of reasons, that's basically my entire point, in accordance with the thread title.

A gaming device, be it an entire system or a peripheral, needs to have at least a very solid launch if it is something new and unproven that developers are unsure about. Within a short timeframe, there needs to be proof or at least the promise that this new thing can sell, otherwise developers won't commit to it and the device in question enters the death spiral (no sales lead to no games, no games lead to no sales).

October launch and going through a holiday season, 2m units sold would be the minimum that need to be achieved. If that can't be done during the best time of the year for video game sales, then the device will be in for a very rough new year.

"But Sony didn't even produce 2m units." - True, and that's a problem. It's a sign that Sony themselves didn't fully believe in the idea and that the whole thing would be nothing more than a shortlived experiment. They spent R&D on it for years and then released it to make at least some money back. Are there any major Sony games in development for VR?