The problem with this comparison is that the iPhone 1 was supplanting phones that could do little more than call or text. It could do at least those things so there was no loss (except for monetary) to buying an iPhone over maintaining the status quo. Eventually the tech got better and better and the value of the phone shot way up against its price.

But a VR system needs software and is useless without it. If there aren't many users, they're not going to get software. If there's no software, no one's going to buy more units. If people don't buy the units, the manufacturers won't eat the cost to continue making them. Then we're back to square one.

If manufacturers really want this to work, they either need to pour tons of money into first party development or developers need to charge a lot more money for the games. I don't see either of these things happening, so I'm not holding out much hope for this generation of VR either.