VR has one particular issue to contend with that will keep it out of the popular markets: The hardware itself.
Phones have taken off because of 'good enough' hardware and a 'good enough' interface being tied to a device that you can easily pick up, and easily put down. It is socially acceptable to have something in your hands that you are messing with, while doing something else (sitting on a train, waiting in line, carrying on a conversation, driving... doh!), because you can easily switch between reality, and the reality presented by the device in front of you. With PC gaming it is less easy to switch between the game and reality, but still manageable. But VR, true VR, requires you to gear up for it, section off a block of time to dedicate to it undisturbed, and then immerse yourself in that for a while without having to worry about any social consequences. I am not saying that there is not a market for that (personally I would love to have one even with the limited amount of time I have to use such a device), but the devices that sell in popular markets are the ones that either promote more social interaction (like phones and consoles), or are at least compatible with social interaction (like a TV).
I think that augmented reality platforms like google glass is more the direction to go, and over time something more like a contact lens, or even an eye replacement would be the direction to take as very few people want to wear a bulky head-set that detaches them from the world entirely. I just do not see it becoming socially acceptable to have a physical object over soneone's eyes. It provokes a stigmatic reaction by others who are arround (the #1 reason people wear contacts instead of glasses, and why hardly anyone wears sunglasses in public spaces), and they are simply too heavy, not high enough quality, and simply not 'real enough' to make them desirable in the first place.
On top of all that they suffer from the issue that plagues computer animation. Computer animated films like toy story took off because they do not at all try and look like reality, the brain understands this as being a different environment and deals with it on a separate level. But then you have shows that to try and mimic reality (most notably the early 3D version of The Polar express), where the brain compares it with reality and then rejects it out-right. So too we understand a TV screen or monitor as being a separate reality, and so the brain (over time) reacts to framed visual stimuli differently than it does with immersive stimuli (not that kids, and people who do not grow up with TV react differently to TV at first). When something is inaccurate in a 'traditional' screen environment then we gloss over it and it does not bother us. But when we are immersed into an environment then all the sudden game physics and environment manipulation becomes a big deal. Games start to look very empty because of the relative lack of detail, and we feel vertigo and other odd feelings when we get different stimuli from our other senses.
Point being; there are a ton of other issues than simply having the right head-set. VR needs to work just as hard on environmental and haptic feedback to make a game truly immersive for those of us who like and want it, and they need to find ways to make the hardware disappear to make it socially acceptable for mass markets.
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