I hope you guys like it and it sells well but i am really worried this 1rst gen "Chair-VR" is going to damage VR moving forward.
To explain myself, the only reason VR survives is if it provides experiences that cannot be had on a tradition screen. Why? Well that is because playing traditional games on a 2d screen is an objectively better method than the same experience in VR.
For example, playing something like uncharted 4 in vr is a novelty, not a platform, and that novelty wears off fast. I own a Vive and can attest to how fast playing traditional games in VR gets annoying. Its easier and more comfortable to play then on a tv.
VR can provide experiences that are completely unique to the platform though (Budget Cuts, Onward, Call of Starseed, Rec Room, Raw Data, etc), and it is these experiences that justify the devices in the minds of early adopters.
My fear is that Sony, in their haste, has jumped into VR with a version that plays to VRs weakness, not strength. PSVR will reach a lot more people than it's bigger brothers but will do so in a half assed package. The novelty of non room scale, non cockpit, games likely will wear off really quick, and in the minds of the mainstream VR will be a bust. Thus destroying the industry before it can grow.
Tldr: PSVR is the weakest of the three VR headsets (no roomscale), but will get the most visibility. If it fails it might doom the great roomscale headsets, and VRs future, due to Sony's bad decisions.
This post is incredibly out of touch.
The reality of the situation is that, right now, no-one really knows if VR is going to take off as a mainstream success. What is eminently clear is that both the Vive, and the Oculus Rift, which you refer to as 'great roomscale headsets' are not going to achieve mainstream success. In fact, given how poor the sales of the devices now seem to be, I think the bigger question is whether the VR market bubble might implode due to lack of consumer interest. The reality, for the vast majority of people is that the Vive and Oculus Rift are incredibly expensive, even if you have the high-end PC to start with, and roomscale VR is hugely impractical, if not impossible, for a lot of people.
If nothing changes, the VR market looks like it will stagnate, if not collapse. Most VR development right now is speculative, so if VR games don't find market success, you can expect to see a lot of those developers changing focus or simply disappearing. PSVR doing badly won't doom the high end PC VR devices, because arguably they're already doomed - a successful PSVR might save the Vive and Rift however. Developers are much more likely to keep creating titles for your Vive and Rift if there is an install base of several million PSVR owners there too.
The ideal scenario is that the VR market splits just as the traditional gaming one does. A mainstream device which is relatively affordable and reasonably good quality, and a high end device which costs a lot but delivers the highest fidelity, with the vast majority of content produced for both the low end and high end. I'm really unsure whether this will actually happen, but I hope it does. Right now my head says that it won't and that VR will slump, at least until some massive new innovation, but from what I have seen and played of VR, I hope it does succeed.
As a final note, you state that traditional games are objectively best on screens, which I don't think is always true. Some types of traditional games, like driving games, are significantly more immersive in VR, even if you do lose out on the image quality. You also seem to believe that most of PSVR games are simply traditional games being converted to VR, which is completely untrue. The vast majority of PSVR games are clearly designed from the ground up with VR in mind.
