Strong rumors of Valve's new VR launching this year. Quite excited for that. Otherwise, the status (in my opinion) is stagnant. I still have fun occasionally getting into VR though.

regrettably, Meta is the state of the art for VR. the Meta Quest 3 is stunningly crisp for the price point. it's almost retina-scale with the pixels, the head/spatial tracking is extremely accurate and doesn't require any base station or wired attachment, and you can fluidly stream VR games from your PC wirelessly at 1080p and like 120fps with nearly no latency or reality sickness.

I played Myst and Riven while I was sick with COVID last year, and it was one of the top five visual experiences of my lifetime (along with seeing the Grand Canyon and taking psychedelics.)

Meta has also recently finally cracked the holy grail of non-chonky AR glasses with full FoV, though the gallium nitride waveguide process is quite expensive and yields are too poor for them to sell it. but they look like slightly nerdy glasses that let you see holograms superimposed on your vision, even outdoors in the light.

unfortunately, VR is still anti-social and there's not much content there, and the company leading the way is awful. but even just for Riven alone it was worth it to me.

I have to think it'll stay an arcade and power user thing indefinitely. The full experience needs large, clear section of your house, and housing is getting more expensive. Break down your costs per sq ft and see that you're paying an awful lot for it.

Games like Beat Saber don't have to move around too much, but the experience will always be limited if games have to keep the player in one spot and can't use room scale. That said, Beat Saber can be pretty decent cardio workout if you put effort into swinging your arms (as opposed to lazily flicking your wrists around). Sweat buildup on the headset can be an issue, though. Keep some alcohol wipes around.

Racing/airplane sim stuff is one of the best uses. People who are into that are willing to drop a lot of money.