One thing I don't see mentioned much here, and excuse me if I missed it, but comfort and practicality of the headsets.
The one thing I found with Gear VR is that it really is a bit tiresome after a while. The weight is one thing, but so is the fit. It's not nice having your face pressed into the headset the whole time and it does impact on the VR as well. Simply smiling at something in game, or twitching my nose cos it's itchy, and my cheeks move the headset out of the sweet spot. It makes you very conscious of wearing an artificial screen that's always moving about just that little bit. It tends to get hot and sweaty too and puts pressure on your face/temples, not helping with headaches.
Vive and Rift are definitely lighter and more comfortable but they still have exactly the same kind of fit as far as I can see. Straps going on top of your head are also really impractical for some people like me because, as vain as this is, it messes up my hair big time. It's not something I'd do if I had plans for leaving my house immediately afterwards that's for sure. For something to hit the mass market and be something people want to use this will be a stumbling block for Gear VR, Rift and Vive. Something that makes someone think twice about using it for a 15 minute session before heading out. Sure for most hardcore folk we most likely couldn't care less and in many instances it's less of an issue, but you want this to be inclusive, not have a bunch of downsides.
So... PSVR. (I wish I could afford Vive and a PC to run it, I'd buy it in a heartbeat, but PSVR is my go to VR for the foreseeable future). PSVR for me hands down has taken the best route with the headset design.
The mechanism to put it on is apparently very easy and intuitive to use and fundamentally it places the weight on the back of your head and on your forehead. Essentially nothing actually sits on your face. Nothing presses in tight or weighs on your nose. It basically doesn't come into contact with your face unless you really slide it in, so moving your cheek muscles, or having a scratch of your nose isn't going to move the image around all that much, if at all.
Also since the screen slides in and out on a rail it means there's a lot less chance of accidentally smushing the screen against your thumbs or nose/cheeks as I often do with Gear VR when putting it on. Just put it on like a crown, adjust it to fit snug, then slide the screen in and you're good to go. Sliding the screen out gives you enough peripheral downards vision to have a glance at your phone, grab a quick drink etc, then slide back in and continue on. In all the other headsets this becomes a far more laborious process of carfully removing, doing what you need to do, and putting it back on again. Lots of adjusting, making sure not to smudge the damn lenses or encourage a speck of dust to land on them to ruin the experience (Gear VR damn you with your dust/smudges on THREE potential surfaces that all need meticulously cleaned!).
I think this basic practical user experience stuff is being ignored by many over the raw technical experience, and it's almost as important, and in terms of mass adoption will be very important indeed. When people complain of not wanting to strap themselves in to a screen and block out the world you do need to accommodate those people, and I think PSVR does a nice job of doing that. It needs to be quick to get on and off and require an absolute minimum of fuss. I'm still bemused that all the other headsets use the ski mask with straps design when Sony has done what the've done instead, and experience with Gear VR confirmed my thoughts on how they don't seem all that practical.
And I know at this stage most of you simply won't care but if you look ahead and imagine a world where VR becomes quite important, surely headset designs like Rift and Vive are going to have to change pretty quickly to make the user experience more mass market friendly, don't you think?
