Same applies to wearables (barely alive thanks to a few specific use cases and Apple).
It's like someone thinks they can create a TV, just let it be and it will develop into something bigger. Sometimes that's the case and sometimes you've got to fully be behind it.
More physically engaging video games definitely seemed to have some interest, though, starting with the Wii.
It's the whole package, not just one factor. Motion sickness, strapping something to your face, requirement for "free space" to move around and exercise of being up for an extended period of time.
Playing a shooter in VR is genuinely one of my favorite experience, it feels tactical, you have to crouch, reload, you hear the bullets wishling close to your ears, etc... but it's also an experience that is kept to the odd weekend, every once in a while, because it genuinely feels like work to setup everything.
I'd go the opposite way. The problem with current VR is it is just some goggles. What you really want is a full exoskeleton to capture all your movement and add some force feedback. Put it on servos so you can add a little free fall here and there, some fans around to get the feeling of wind. Yeah it would not be cheap (at least at first).
I was also surprised at how much mixed-reality made a difference for me personally. I'm much more likely to strap the thing to my head when I can have awareness of what's happening in the physical world.
But even then, VR never became the runaway success that they were hoping for. I think, anyway. Same with Apple Vision, it went real quiet around that after the initial release.
Looking around my neck of the woods (the Netherlands), VR / AR is basically nonexistent. You'd expect VR and VR titles to have their own section in gaming stores... no such luck. (mind you / caveat, we don't actually have many gaming stores like that)
Smash Bros Brawl? 13 million sales. Smash Bros Ultimate? 35 million.
Animal Crossing City Folk? 3 million. Animal Crossing New Horizons? 47 million.
Mario Party 8? 9 million. Super Mario Party? 21 million.
Zelda Twilight Princess? 8 million. Zelda Breath of the Wild? 34 million.
Basically, the Switch has 50% more units in the world, but you can tack on 200%-400% more sales per franchise entry in general; and some extreme breakouts. For this reason alone, Nintendo is never returning to Wii-era gimmicks, and we’ll probably never see “Nintendo Selects” again.
The thing that really made the switch sell was it's portability.
Even 5 years post launch Just Dance 3 sold 10M units.
'Gamers don't want to move', is just nerd bashing. It's 2025, even amongst hardcore D&D playing, JRPG stanning, con attending 'weeb' adjacent ubernerds, fitness is in. Sure Americans, and increasingly Europeans are tending toward obesity, but suggesting thats a characteristic of 'gamers' as a class is just factually incorrect.
But “good VR” is this sense is really very far off. Like actually judging the devices as things you might want to use, instead of with the engineer’s perspective (yea we’re all very impressed by what Oculus pulled off with the limited tech of our day, but the devices actually kinda suck if you don’t grade them on that curve).
They need to be as easy to put on as sunglasses, need to be able to just pop them on without pre-analyzing your space, there needs to be good force-feedback (you can’t have a satisfying sword fight in VR). This isn’t possible yet, of course, so it continues to be niche.
Otherwise gamers could as well be watching TV.