VR hardware has plenty of room for improvement today, and the fact that it hasn't caught on in past years doesn't feel to me to be a helpful indicator, because

VR hardware has plenty of room for improvement today, and the fact that it hasn't caught on in past years doesn't feel to me to be a helpful indicator, because the immersiveness of VR is highly dependent on the quality of the hardware. But one could say the same for mobile gaming. Once computers were advanced enough to fit on an iPhone, mobile gaming blew up far, far bigger than what the GameBoy was ever able to capture. Your assertion that "[VR] never actually improved playing performance" doesn't make much sense to me. VR doesn't have to succeed by performing well as yet another gaming platform -- I bought Skyrim VR and have played no more than 20 minutes of it (though to be fair, I've only played a few hours of the plain Skyrim before getting bored). VR opens up new potential for gameplay that developers are only beginning to take advantage. I've owned a PSVR and while I have logged more hours on traditional PS4 gaming, it's only because there are far more and better developed games on it compared to VR. But even with the VR hardware's limitations, and the inconvenience of having to put on the helmet, I've still had plenty of fun experiences with VR that can't be emulated on non-VR. The best game of all that I've played so far is ironically, the free-to-play Rec Room.