Its kind of silly, but VR. I like hanging out in vrchat with my internet friends and it makes me feel a lot closer to them. Even when we're just talking and goin to cool worlds.
Was also gonna say this since expensive gadgets weren't excluded. I played a bunch of VR minigolf over pandemic to socialize with my irl friends who I couldn't hang out with and these days VR has been the center of more than half of the social gatherings at my place where I demo games and we pass the headset around for everyone to try different stuff. Seeing new people try VR for the first time never gets old.
Not op but quest 2 is a great deal right now for cassual gaming. It works stand alone and with PC. I have also quest 3, but quest 2 is insanely cheap right now and will hold at least a couple of more years. The differences vs quest 3 do not justify the cost difference unless you are hardcore gamer. Imo
I got an older Vive Cosmos headset for like 300 dollars. The controllers kinda suck but its easy to use. Might upgrade tracking and get valve knuckles but its expensive to do so.
Valve Index kit is the best overall setup for the money. Quest headsets are for more casual gaming but the Index uses the power of your PC and its GPU for the graphics.