New Play Style in the Good Old Way
If you've tried VR (Vive, Oculus Rift) I'm almost 100% you've been blown away. It's an experience. Despite that, for VR to mesh with _traditional gaming[1], it needs to support and enhance the Old Ways.
Us who like traditional video games,[2] expect our hardware to support them well. We hope that when something new is created, the new expands on the old, allowing us to still play ever more complex and intense versions of the old.
The reality is that when a console like the Wii is created, the new paradigm it heralds, is conjured from a business decision ("stand apart from Sony") and enables new ways, but they aren't necessarily better than the old: An IR controller plus an analog stick was better for Pikmin than dual analog, but resulted in some rather gimmicky, though not broken controls for Skyward Sword.
The Nintendo DS was a place where the Old Ways clashed with new play style options. The Nintendo DS had all the buttons it need, but also a touch screen. The games played in the Old Way were some of the best we've seen of the kind. Slowly though, some new experiences that showed signs of still adhearing to the values of the old appeared. Osu Tatakae Ouendan and Soul Bubbles. The two Zelda games. Yet the two best games on the Nintendo DS, GTA: Chinatown Wars and Clash of Heroes are controls-wise really conservative (though Clash is clever as fuck).
Can experiences like the Wii and the Nintendo DS, point us in a direction for VR to more quickly better support the Old Ways, so that VR will enhance and improve the Old Ways? First-Person Shooters, strategy games, third-person action-adventure games. Hack 'n Slash experiences, turn-based Japanese Role Playing Games and reaction intensive action games.
From the get-go, some of the mechanics don't work super well or aren't gonna be really different with a big pair of goggles on the head. VR changes the immersiveness, so we need to think about how bigger immersion can improve what we like about those previous genre. It seems obvious that it would be even more fantastic to experience Skyrim from a more real perspective, but once we try to move around, the immersion is broken, as the controls (analog sticks on a controller) don't match the real-ness of the visual experience.
The question becomes: Which problem do we bang our heads against?
"How to immersively control a game like Skyrim or Diablo III (different games, same dilemma) in VR."
or
"How to make VR games that work within the confines of VR, yet are still built around the traits of traditional games."
The Wii showed us that the first problem takes a lot of research until we get games that still aren't quite as well controlled as the old games (Skyward Sword).
The Nintendo DS showed us that it takes a lot of research until we get games that both tradition yet completely new.
And both consoles showed us that very few companies are actually willing to put in the effort to bring forth this (r)evolution.
Trauma Center on the Wii and Pikmin 3 on the Wii U (With the stylus-based controls) show that, respectively, the second problem is worth the wait, and the first problem is worth the wait.