Is Virtual Reality Becoming the New Fad Of the Decade?

    Sony, Facebook / Oculus and HTC all said that VR is the "next big thing" but if that's true then why are Google Trends showing up lower support for the interest for Virtual Reality than when PSVR was first announced for pre-orders? I mean, I'll be honest VR sounds amazing but for a guy like me that wants to experience real life I feel like I would rather go to an Arcade to be immersed in gaming than Virtual Reality. Back a long while ago, there was a similar thing that happened with VR: Nintendo came out with the Virtual Boy headset that displayed games in 3D Red and Black color but it just wasn't up to par. It failed to due a number of things that sounds awful similar to today's situation with VR headsets: The price was too high, people had health concerns, the 3D wasn't immersive and the games were lacking in quality as well.

     Now knowing the reasons why Nintendo's Virtual Boy burned to the ground in spectacular fashion, we can see the parallels with today's situation. Health concerns have been raised (Motion Sickness), Games are lacking in quality and the starting price (between $400-$800) is too high and that doesn't include hardware prices for PC users or people that need to buy a PS4 Pro for the best experience. Historically PC gamers have always had the first advances in gaming technology like the 1st 64 player server, VOIP chat and other things long before it became common on consoles so if this tech isn't catching on for PC users than how the heck will it catch on with console gamers despite a cheaper price point? 

    The other day there was an article on the Wall Street Journal that VR headsets are staying on shelves and the estimations for adoption numbers have been lowered hugely over the last 6 months so What we're starting to see is a slow-motion repeat of history where sales will continue to slack until the product is no longer profitable. Once it's no longer profitable they will take the product off the shelf and the next advancement in technology becomes the next flopped tech fad of the decade.

   What we have learned is that the current state of the VR industry is failing despite Sony boasting record sales for selling it's VR helmets to just 2% of it's total PS4 player population. Given the historical comparisons of the past failed Virtual Boy experiment we can conclude that VR is starting to not look good and looks increasely to be a flop. From a quote from Mark Twain "History doesn't repeat itself but it rhymes".