OK, here's the pitch.
Do you remember about 12 years ago, when rhythm games like DDR™ were still really popular in spite of having been around for a decade already, so Activision™ published Red Octane/Harmonix's Guitar Hero™?
Guitar Hero™ turned out to be waaaaayyyyy popular, so EA™ naturally pushed out their own version a few years later (also by Harmonix, oddly enough, who were no longer working on Guitar Hero™ with Activision anymore), which they called Rock Band™. Which was basically multiplayer Guitar Hero™, except that you and three friends could role-play as an entire... rock band (I meant to do that), with one player on vocals, another player shredding on lead guitar (naturally), one more on bass guitar, and one drummer... without which no rock band (or Rock Band™) is ever complete.
Rock Band™ didn't do nearly as well as Guitar Hero™, of course, racking up only $600M in sales compared to GH's $2B-plus, in part because it was more expensive. Guitar Hero™ came with a cheap plastic guitar-shaped game controller, but Rock Band™ needed three: mic, guitar, bass, and "drums"... and also three other people to play with you, instead of GH's guitar-solo gameplay.
Still, it did well enough to have earned a remake... of sorts.
So, picture this: Instead of a cheap plastic game controller, the new version will require a few hundred dollars in expensive VR peripherals. And it will be made by an indie developer (no AAA fat cats here!), who will only have budget to convert about 1⁄4 of Rock Band™'s game play into VR, so they're actually only going to remake the drumming part of Rock Band™. And forget licensing expensive actual pop and rock titles to drum along to, because, fuck, even Rockstar™ can't afford that shit anymore. So instead of popular hits with killer drum solos, you'll get a handful of cheaper, custom-crafted tunes that work well with VR's wonky motion controls.
How does that sound so far? What, VR isn't gimmick enough? OK, then... how about we make the game's weightless, wonky, non-drum motion controls into an asset by making them.... light sabers! Oh, fuck, I meant laser swords, not Light Sabers™. Seriously, Lucasfilm are litigious as fuck. Do not mess with them.
Better? See, I knew you'd like it. Still, it's a shame about the Light Saber™ business. Maybe it's still possible to work "saber" into the title? Drum Saber? No, there's no drums in this beat-keeping game. Maybe Beat Saber? Ah, that's clunky as fuck, too. Oh, well, trademark it anyway, and at least the game will have a name to fall back on...
Beat Saber™. OK, yeah, that might grow on me.
How does it sound to you?
Well, I'll tell you what it doesn't sound like. It doesn't sound original, for one thing. It's literally 1⁄4 of Rock Band™'s game play, with a fraction of the sound track to play along to. And while it doesn't sound bad, it absolutely does not sound like the best fucking game ever released on the Steam™ platform. Again, I'm not saying it's bad; it may even be good, but if you're calling this Best Video Game Ever Released, then I can only assume you're grading on some sort of serious fucking curve.
And, whatever else it sounds like, it definitely doesn't sound like VR's long-lost Killer App™.
Beat Saber™ is not a quantitatively new experience. It does not allow you to do anything you can't already do in a bunch of other (and, yes, better) games. Its definitely-not-Star Wars™ styling does not make up for its thin game play and limited playlist; inviting people to write and upload their own original music for the game, which the developer will then release as DLC, doesn't actually help. And Beat Saber™ definitely isn't going to inspire millions of people to run out and drop hundreds of dollars on VR peripherals, just to play 1⁄4 of Rock Band™ but with laser swords.
Sure, VR enthusiasts who were starving for anything different to play on their expensive VR rigs are loving their new VR rhythm game, to the tune of 50K units sold, but average consumers are not going to spend $1K plus on a VR set up so that they can build Bodies by Beat Saber™. Not in large enough numbers to turn VR's fortunes around, anyway.
You'd never know that from all the hype this week, though. OMFG, the hype...