For me, one of the biggest issues with VR right now is that I'm just not sure I'd get all that much use out of it. Some of the games look like they would be super fun (Beat Saber especially), but on the other hand I'm not really sure I'd play them enough to justify the investment. And then all I'd have is a very expensive paperweight that rarely gets used. I do game a lot in general, but a lot of that is RPGs and strategy games that don't really benefit from VR that much, if at all.
The other problem is the price. Someone earlier mentioned the Odyssey, which looks pretty great. And at "only" $450, it's expensive, but still something I could maybe afford if I'd know I'd use it a lot. Except Amazon US doesn't ship to Europe (at least not to my country). Neither does the Microsoft store, or any other webstore I could find. There's a listing on the
UK Amazon, for the quite frankly nonsense price of almost 600 pounds. That's about $770 for Americans. Plus shipping. Which just isn't something I'm willing to pay. And the other alternatives aren't that much better.
The only affordable option seems to be the
Rift plus controllers from Amazon for 350 pounds (plus shipping, which will probably be another 20+), provided I'm willing to wait 1 to 3 months (or longer) for it to dispatch. Thats actually a "fair" (1$ = 1GBP) price compared to the USA, but it feel kind of harder to justify considering how much better other options are supposed to be. Meanwhile, local stores sell the Rift for about 500€ and the Vive for about 600€.
Prices might have gone down in America, but either I'm missing stores that actually ship to Europe or they're still out of reach here (particularly when you factor in much lower salaries compared to the US: 600€ is a lot to ask in a country where the average take home pay might be 1000€. And that's in a relatively well off part of the continent). That's a price of a brand new console, and without trying VR out it's really hard to justify it giving me more for my money than a PS4 or a Switch.
A PSVR seems like a decent option, but it just doesn't seem to have as many interesting titles available. So I'm not really that interested in it. Particularly with the PS5 right around the corner that will probably bring a hardware update. And after factoring in the price of the camera and two move controllers, it's doesn't really seem that much cheaper than the Rift. I also do most of my gaming on the PC, so I'd prefer to do it there. And Beat Saber doesn't support custom songs on it (from what I can tell), which almost seems like reason enough to go PC.
The final problem is that this is a really large investment for something I have no idea if it'll work. Is my room/apartment big enough? Will it work properly with my glasses (I've heard stories of lenses being scratched a while back)? Will I get motion sickness? Will I use it enough (see above)? Will the tech get replaced in a couple of years? And also, is it really as impressive as the fans make it out to be?
Maybe a lot of the above is just me being misinformed, but all of the above was enough to make me never really look into the tech further.
The one positive that I have noticed has changed, however, is the growth of various "VR Shops" that let you rent equipment. One even recently opened within a reasonable distance away from me, and I have been thinking of checking it out at some point in the future. It's not cheap, but still a decent option for seeing if this sort of tech is as impressive as people say. Sadly, the experience seems rather limited in terms of the setup and available games (which mostly seem like quick proof of concepts, which I suppose is needed when you only have a limited amount of time to play: you want games where you can get in quickly). This is the one aspect that I feel like has the potential to grow the tech. Like the video said, it's apparently something you have to experience yourself to be convinced. And that's true: at these prices, you really can't just take someone's word for it.
