Valve's New Hardware Was Meant to Be the Start of Something Great for PC Gaming
All of Valve's new hardware is now out in the wild, and while I've enjoyed everything from the Steam Controller to the Frame , it's hard to recommend any of it to anyone right now. That problem isn't exclusive to Valve either. Across the entire industry, getting any hardware that can run video games is significantly more expensive than it was a year ago, and that's spoiled some otherwise awesome…
Valve has launched its newest hardware, aiming to expand SteamOS support and offer a baseline configuration for developers. However, the high prices of these gadgets have significantly increased the cost of getting into PC gaming. This issue is not exclusive to Valve, as the entire industry is facing higher prices for gaming hardware compared to a year ago.
Intel's new handheld chips, like the Arc G3 Extreme, are also quite expensive, costing $1,899. Meanwhile, graphics cards such as Nvidia's GeForce RTX 5090 have skyrocketed in price to $8,000, making them unaffordable for many. Despite these challenges, Valve's hardware and Intel's handheld chips could have been very impactful if they were priced more affordably a year ago.
The Steam Frame, which aims to expand SteamOS software support to ARM hardware, is also working on getting Windows games running natively with Proton and Fex. As prices remain high, it's crucial for developers to focus on optimizing their games for lower-powered hardware, as more realistic graphics may limit accessibility for many players.
Written by urgent.news from IGN's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
