Graphics cards really need a huge performance jump to make VR work, and given both Nvidia and AMD seem to be happy releasing a new set each year with only modest 20-30% performance gains then what does this mean for VR?
Worst case? It means that details are scaled back in the name of framerate. Presence still works in a world that doesn't seem perfectly lifelike, so as long as the player is in another world, that's the single most important thing.
Less AA, less texture resolution. We can dial that back up as the tech gets better.
VR is the new Crysis when it comes to stress testing your hardware :)
No, the worst case is that using them makes people sick.
Most gamers that I see nowadays are all about the detail. Crank the AA up to max, the texture resolution to max, draw distance, and so on. If you lose a frame or two, it's not a big deal as long as the average is 60+.
VR completely reverses that - losing frames destroys immersion and causes motion sickness. Since even a fax-machine detail world still produces presence, we can easily sacrifice some detail for better framerates.
Given that 2016 is supposed to be the "year of VR", it makes (marketing) sense that the GPUs released this year will be designed and/or optimized for that purpose. We'll have to wait and see how that plays out.
[1] - http://www.pcgamer.com/nvidias-pascal-is-10x-as-powerful-as-...
Also, with VR, you can just upscale. You don't need to render a 4K/8K image to eliminate the screen-door effect.