Wii Sports doesn't give you headaches when you play it. The quality of the screen and the frame rate actually has a very relevant effect on user experience for VR where this was a complete non-issue with Wii Sports. The Wii/Wii sports was a success because it was cheap, easy to play, and fun for literally the whole family. No chance of headaches, no chance of vertigo.  No having to pass around a wearable device to take truns on. I'm not sure why you're suddenly drawing a parallel between the two.

Question: Why do you think a $200 occulus standalone headset will offer a markedly better experience than a $900 cell phone with a $100 case/controller? You can't realistically expect that rumored headset to offer a better pixel density, and higher frame rate than a Samsung Galaxy S8 does, do you? You've already agreed that the Galaxy S8 in a headset isn't good enough. Why would this be better? You don't even know if this headset will offer quality positional headtracking, and you have to agree that at that price, it probably doesn't.

But wait hold up. You just argued that Google Daydream (and thus Gear VR) is the bare minimum of an acceptable VR experience and now it appears like you haven't even used Daydream or Gear VR?  How can you make those claims? Now you're changing your tune to say that these devices are hurting VR when not minutes ago you were claiming they were a way that VR could succeed! You claim that high processing power isn't required for VR, and just completely dismissed the most popular low-power VR experience as "not VR at all". Which is it?

The more this conversation goes on, the more it sounds like you think VR will become mainstream because you really want it to, and not because that's actually realistic. Now you're bringing in Nintendo to the conversation with me? The scenarios you imagine for how this apparently can happen have jumped all over the place that it feels that you're just picturing VR solutions that you'd really like to have, not ones that millions of people are actually willing to pay for.

I gave wii sports as an example that graphical quality doesn't matter. Which is also why I have less of a problem believing that a $200 headset with a screen specifically chosen for VR can offer a better experience than a $900 phone. The Wii cost $250 at launch. A $200 headset that doesn't need anything else could work.

What I'm claiming is that inside out tracking and standalone headsets are the way to make VR mainstream. Perhaps Google's worldsense will be good enough. We're talking about what could make VR mainstream. Not that current phone solutions are already mainstream. It's accessible but not good enough yet and without positional tracking, I do believe it hurts the experience.

Let me sum up what mainstream VR needs:
- Standalone, untethered, wireless
- Accurate positional tracking
- No external sensors required, inside out tracking
- Low persistance screen
- Low latency
- High framerate, 90fps or 60fps with positional reprojection
- Low price

Resolution and high end graphics are not a requirement.

Google worldsense or other inside out tracking solutions could make phones good enough for the full VR experience, depending on the screen quality. Nintendo could do the same with a Switch revision.

I haven't tried the current Daydream, yet I have seen the difference between positional headtracking and only rotational headtracking. Which is the best you get with 3D 360 videos. The environment not moving with you and providing believable parallax is just as important as any stereoscopic effects to create a virtual reality experience. So yes, I dismiss the current Daydream platform as real VR. Daydream 2.0 with Worldsense could fix that.
http://www.pcmag.com/news/353754/google-offers-a-peek-inside-daydream-2-0

It'll become mainstream eventually, some things take time. DVD came out in 1997, it wasn't really adopted by a lot of people until 2001/2002.

HDTV took like 8-10 years before everyone had one.

For a lot of the 80s/early 90s many households didn't have a PC. The internet was around from the early 1990s, but a lot of people didn't really get it until 7-8 years later.

There will eventually be headsets that are $200, and eventually there will be headsets that are lighter with less wires too. It's not a matter of "if" simply a matter of "when". 

There's definitely interest in it I think, the kiosks for the tech I see in malls or local festivals always have people wanting to try it out, it's just still tech that needs a couple of layers of refinment. 

A VR headset that's lighter/less wired for Playstation 5 with PS5 level visuals and is cheaper will start to really get things going. VR on PS4 is like online on PS2 ... it's just taking it's initial steps. The gaming potential is simply too high for it.

Nope.

VR, like 3D, is just a niche feature that will never be mainstream. There will continue to be flare ups of popularity but those will also continue to drizzle out and become nothing again.

People don't want to wear extra headgear.
People don't want to wear extra headgear.
People don't want to wear extra headgear.
People don't want to wear extra headgear.
People don't want to wear extra headgear.
People don't want to wear extra headgear.

It won't happen to mainstream. It just won't. Hell, even the 3DS couldn't make 3D popular. The battery life impact and relatively narrow view just made it a meh feature pretty much everyone turned off.

The only time 3D or VR will become mainstream is when it requires nothing extra. Think holodeck on Star Trek. When the feature adds the benefit without impact to anything else you're doing, it will be accepted by the masses.

But it is an example that could be wanted by the masses, should it be affordable.

Resolution might not be important but pixel density is. Typically that is achieved with high resolution screens. You can beat around the bush all you want, but low pixel density (and thus low resolution) screens lead to screen door effects that make people sick when using VR headsets. You can say that's not a requirement, but realistically it is.

I've never said anything about high end graphics, ever. What I have insisted upon is that VR requires extensive processing power to acheieve things like low latency, accurate tracking and high frame rates. There's no way around this. On top of that, making it untethered and wireless adds additional expense as the processing unit has to portable, and has to have its own power supply. This is completely at odds with your requirement of a low price. Your solutions to make VR mainstream make VR more expensive, not less expensive.

Also, it's super sweet that you believe "that a $200 headset with a screen specifically chosen for VR can offer a better experience than a $900 phone". I mean that's truly adorable, as if a cell phone's cellular antenna and touch interface is the reason a phone costs $900. A Samusng Galaxy S8 will have much a much higher quality, more VR friendly screen, and far more processing power than this apparent budget-oriented screen. There's literally no reason to expect a $200 VR headset can offer a better experience than a S8  in a Gear VR. So why pretend this device will?

So you seem to know enough about Google Worldsense or similar solutions that you can speculate on how feasible it is to implement in a low-cost consumer product or a Nitnendo Switch, so what kind of hardware does this solution require? How expensive is that hardware? How much processing power is required to make the solution work accurately enough for VR, and can that type of solution be implemented in a sub-$200 portable VR headset and still leave enough resources to achieve the frame rates necessary to have a mainstream VR experience? Surely you'd have to know the answer to all of these questions in order to spoeak so confidently about how this technology is going to make VR mainstream. Sounds to me based on the article you presented is that the product hasn't even been seen by anyone outside of Google, and this could be about as awesome as Google Plus.

You seem to be equally convinced it won't be possible. I'll wait to see how inside out tracking turns out for the mixed reality headsets.

As for getting low latency and high framerates, I was already gaming at 90hz v-synched in the nineties. You don't need extensive processing power to reach that. For resolution. I played Descent 2 in 3D as I mentioned earlier, on a 70" screen at 320x240 on a CRT projector. The scanlines from the crt projector were hardly noticeable while playing. Smart optics and sub pixel arrangement can hide the screendoor effect pretty well. My 1080p LCD projector provides a perfectly smooth picture at 92". On psvr I can notice it in 2D, in 3D only in dark scenes where the black level has been set incorrectly.

Comparing the Samsung S8 to VR requirements
http://www.gsmarena.com/samsung_galaxy_s8-8161.php
Way overkill. Yet it still has a pentile supixel arrangement which amplifies the screendoor effect due to the gaps between the pixels. This is a close up from the S7, lots of black between the pixels, no good for screendoor.

A screen with lower resolution yet better sub pixel arrangement together with good optics specifically tailored to that screen can hide the screendoor effect.

I don't know much about google worldsense, only a hands on reports, same for the mixed reality headsets based on hololens' inside out tracking, which say it works. It needs some extensive hands on with games though. Yet do you think worldsense is merely a joke and Oculus rift is announcing a fake cheap headset just to watch their current sales decline?

I don't need to know the answer to all the hardware questions. All I'm saying is that if that is achieved, VR has a chance to become mainstream. Depending on good software ofcourse. (Which can be as simplistic as Wii sports, just needs to work for everybody)

The only way such an embarassing contraption becomes mainstream is if the tech is absolutely insanely good (talking about holo deck stuff here or something like sword art online) or if its better integrated and more slick (like a pair of sunglasses).

Until one of those happens, it will still be just a nerdy device.

Seems kinda strange that the Galaxy S8 screen is overkill, considering it apparently offers a sub-par VR experience. That doesn't add up, does it? Ohh right. It needs the VR version of Wii Sports, and then Gear VR will sell like gangbusters. It's just that easy.

And now you're going to argue that because you had a PC in the 90's that ran non-VR games at 90Hz V-synched that means that it should be arbitrary to offer a compelling VR experience in 2018 for $200 in a device 1/100th the size of your PC, at 1/10th of the price on a screen that is 3-4 times higher pixel density with graphical fidelity that games have come to expect over the last two decades? When Sony struggles to do the same on much bigger hardware, that costs well over $500... right. Your argument is completely non-sensical. Occulus Rift doesn't employ magicians and miracle workers. These are legitimate engineering problems that can't be solved with hopes and dreams.

I believe it's totally possible Occulus Rift is releasing a $200 standalone VR headset next year. I just know in advance it's probably going to be total shit and millions of people are not going to care enough to buy them. I don't care what technology is in it. It's not going to be able to offer nearly as compelling of an experience as PSVR at less than half the price, at less than a quarter of the size, with its own battery source. It's going to be much more like a worse version of a  cell phone VR experience, which you've already agreed is total shit.  If this apparently revolutionary VR technology is in a $200 standalone device, then you know it's probably over-hyped nonsense to describe what is likely going to amount to a simple sensor that are tedious to calibrate and lose calibration rather easily. 

The technology behind legitimate inside-out tracking is actually pretty expensive, and more importantly very resource instensive, both of which fly in the face of the idea of an inexpensive, standalone headset. You're going to have to come to terms with that and accept it.

I was simply giving you an example how a lower res screen can look better than a higher res pentile matrix screen when zoomed up close, like in VR. The 1440x2960 resolution is overkill, just as 64GB ram, GPS, 3D touch, fancy camera, 384khz audio, bunch of sensors, 2.3ghz octacore cpu, no wonder it's $900.

You keep assuming that graphical fidelity and resolution are key. It is for hardcore gamers, it's hard to convince them that the downgrades in DC VR make it worthy of being called a game at all. The mainstream however doesn't care as long as it's fun. No, you won't get RE7 on that $200 headset. Doesn't need to.

I'll accept your pessimistic outlook once the reviews come in. Perhaps Eonite is full of shit with their cheap sensors and tablet class processing requirements for inside out tracking. They seemed to have fooled other companies into investing though.

Btw how does Sony struggle when Polybius runs absolutely smooth at native 120fps on the base ps4 on PSVR. It only struggles cause of that high graphical fidelity that core gamers have come to expect.