Dev kit 1? They made quite some important improvements with the current iteration. Friend of mine makes games and got to try the HTC Vive recently at a conference. He said it blew Cardboard / early Oculus out of the water. Higher screen resolution, less lag and especially the controllers make it a much better and interactive experience since you can also walk / jump / crouch around. That said, the $800 Vive and Oculus require a $1000+ computer, so of course it is not ready to go mainstream. Both VR and GPU's definitely need more time to go down in price/performance.A friend has had an Oculus for about a year now. It's almost as engaging and useful as Google Cardboard.
It's a bigger problem than that. No matter what you do, it's still two clunky screens in a clunky facemask designed around sensory deprivation. He's got two of them and the HTC and cardboard and even if the things weighed less than bifocals they will remain an alienating experience that nobody wants. I've been following HMD since the '80s. I've been following it professionally since 2000. There's this idea that's pushed to investors that "we're there, dude" that's been bandied about since DARPA experimented with helmets bigger than barbecues but we will never change the fact that binocular vision is just a tiny part of our positional awareness.
Define nobody? VR, I think, can add a lot to gaming even in its current state. What's the "there' in "we're there"? The Vive, with a 15x15ft space to walk in, audio that's getting there and intuitive controllers is about all I could wish for for an immersive gaming experience. Much, much better than a flat screen can ever bring.experience that nobody wants.
Google Glass was impossible to get, too. I know a guy who earned the right to be a "pioneer" and sold his on eBay without opening it. Turned a $500 profit. You still never saw one in the wild. The "there" in "we're there" is stand up comics making jokes about using devices, rather than about the users of the devices. It's memes related to common experience, rather than the other. it's when the conversation shifts from "here's what weirdos do" to "here's what we do." And to hear the boosters talk, we've been "almost there" for nearly as long as we have with fusion breakeven and artificial intelligence. It comes from a fundamental misunderstanding of the problems at hand.
I tried Glass a month or so ago, it was wholly underwhelming and I still couldn't think of a good reason to ever wear that thing. And most people will never wear Glass, because there is no killer-app to convince a large audience to ever buy it. VR already has a killer app, which is gaming. The Oculus launches with 30 games, including a Valve VR game/demo. More and more free game engines are supporting VR (e.g. Crytek V). Bullet Train looks amazing, I've heard that Tilt Brush is great too. Can't wait to see what creative developers do with the tech. I think that as soon as the price drops below $400, it'll take off. That's in the ballpark of good monitors, which VR sort of is anyway.
Except that games are in your palm, son. The big growth in games is in casual, freemium, skill-free non-immersive experiences. The killer app for VR gaming was Descent, which is damn near older than you, and nobody cared. Biggest non-mobile gaming story of the past 15 years? Guitar Hero and Rock Band. Why? Because you play with your friends. Because it's a mutual experience. Most non-mutual experience you can find in gaming? VR. Same as it ever was.
Historically, VR has more to do with psychedelics than with gaming. Not a thing that gets emphasized, because nerdy psychonauts are a small market and not appealing to the NSF, but Timothy Leary didn't spend all that time at VPL Research because he was really into Frogger.
I don't think VR and AI being perpetually on the horizon is really akin to fusion breakeven. VR and AI are always on the horizon because what you can imagine is always beyond what you can do; the cheerleaders promise magic, and the things we understand (and so can implement) are never magical. They have a hype problem. Fusion breakeven means pretty much what an ignorant person with a dictionary would think it means, it doesn't have a hype problem. It has a physics problem.