Steam Frame review: Another best-in-class VR headset by Valve, though virtual realities clash with economic ones
It’s a strange time to be selling a new VR headset, and maybe an even stranger time to be buying one. The supply of original virtual reality games has slowed to a dribble, and just as with Valve’s last hardware launch, the Steam Frame arrives covered in bumps and scrapes from a fight with the worst components shortage in memory. A fight which, judging by how it’ll cost ya £889 / $1,059 at…
The Steam Frame, a virtual reality headset, has finally arrived after years of anticipation. Priced at $1,059 USD for the 256 GB model with VR controllers, it's set to ship soon. However, the launch has been marred by a memory crisis that impacted the product's price. Valve initially aimed for a lower price point for the Frame, but the ongoing RAM crisis forced them to adjust the launch price.
Joy Lyons, a hardware engineer at Valve, explained that the company designed the device with a specific price in mind, but the memory crisis shifted their focus to ensuring the product could be purchased and upgraded later. Valve's software engineer, Jeremy Selan, expressed disappointment with the price increase, wishing they could have launched the Frame at last year's price.
The headset's 16 GB of LPDDR5X RAM, compared to Meta's Quest 3 with 8 GB of LPDDR5, contributes to its higher cost. Despite this, Valve remains committed to bringing the Steam Frame to market and providing customers with new experiences during the RAM crisis.
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- Valve targeted a lower price for the Steam Frame, then the memory crisis happened: 'I wish we could have shipped it at the price that we were at last year' pcgamer.com
- Valve's Steam Frame launches at $1,059, and Half-Life: Alyx comes free techspot.com
- Valve’s Steam Frame VR headset opens for orders, with the cheapest model priced at a lenswatering £889 / $1,059 rockpapershotgun.com
- Review of Valve's Steam Frame: comfortable to wear, supports multiple ways to play games, but it doesn't feel like a finished product and has short battery life (Sean Hollister/The Verge) theverge.com
- Valve says the Steam Frame is priced at $1,059 for the 256GB model and $1,299 for the 1TB version, both of which come with a copy of Half-Life: Alyx (Adam Vjestica/The Shortcut) theshortcut.com
