I think VR would be completely dead by now if Meta weren't continuing to lose billions every quarter on it. Not many companies can endless sink that much money into a product
It wouldn't have been touted at the "metaverse" and a revolution of having business meeting in a virtual room... looking like a boring office and maybe it would "just" be millions of gamers, but to stay we are in a better state because of Meta is questionable.
They did invest a ton and their products (if one can manage to make abstraction why they even exist in the first place) are actually well done but the line their brought on the entire industry created unrealistic expectation.
Is it good, is it bad, I'm not actually sure but I'm rather confident to say it's not obvious.
Now I'm getting older and have less interest in VR, certainly don't want augmented reality glasses, even if they could be used for gaming. If anything I want glasses that subtract reality, as its a little too much at times.
VR gaming has never been hotter. AI coding agents mean lots of enthusiasts can now turn their favorite flat games into VR. Huge community with that.
I think for now games are the best use of VR, and Valve actually care about games, and Zuckerberg moving on to the next shiny thing leaves room for Valve to join Sony and Microsoft for the next PlayStation/XBox alternative.
If anything, when the Oculus Quest became the Meta Quest, it started feeling like regression rather than progress, with the games going from "wow!" to "did they port a phone game?".
If they launched a year ago it probably would have been $600-700.
If they take a hint and make a version that can't do games standalone they might even drop the price in half.