No prices yet. I may never financially recover from this.
2026 feels like a lifetime away but my wallet already feels the impending doom. Guess ramen it is for the next few years.
I’m reckoning about $1,280 all in for the controller, VR headset, and Steam Machine.
I can’t see it being much more than that because otherwise you would be better off just getting your own build and putting Linux on it.
I think you’re way off, they said that they will price the GabeBox like a PC and not a console, that probably means the price for it will be around 1k since that’s what a similar PC would cost, here’s an example of the price of a prebuilt PC with a 7600 which is the GPU that they mentioned as being the closest to the one they use https://periphio.com/gaming-pcs/firestorm-7600-prebuilt-amd-gaming-pc/
Also the Frame was mentioned as being priced less but close to the Index, and the Index was also 1k with the base stations, so I think the Frame will likely be very close to that as well.
The controller I would guess around $70, but there’s likely to be one together with the Machine, so all in all I think we’re looking closer to 2k. But I would be very happy to be wrong.
I’ve been keeping some money set aside for a newer VR system, specifically one that supports wireless connection to PC. Was considering one of the newer HTC models but Linux support seemed… spotty. In glad I waited and have already wishlisted the Frame
All I got to say is that the new Steam controller better link to devices as a controller and not a mouse. The current steam controller shows up as a mouse when I connect it to mobile devices via Bluetooth, so I can’t use it with games that have controller integration build in to the game, since they think I am connecting a Bluetooth mouse. The only reason I don’t use my current steam controller as my main controller is because of the mouse issue.
I think that was the right approach for the first controller. It is one of the worst controllers for traditional controller games, but it’s the best by a long shot for mouse driven games. So when you plug it somewhere that doesn’t have the correct drivers it’s more likely that you want to use it as a mouse than as a controller. There’s an open source driver for Linux (or at least there used to be), but I don’t think it ever got ported to Android since I guess it would require a rooted phone.
That was a conscious decision they made at the time so that you could browse the web and such with no driver downloads. The full functionality of it is kind of locked behind Steam itself (without community made software), which is its worst quality, for sure.
Uh-oh…my wallet is in trouble.
why is this thing not called Steam Engine?
I agree. FWIW, unofficially, fans are already calling it the “GabeCube” which is no less punny.
Apparently it’s likely smaller than the GameCube was which is pretty incredible.
I’m assuming that d brand are already working on a GameCube inspired skin for this.
I wonder if the steam machine supports hdmi cec.
It does, it’s in the specs at the bottom of the steam page
HDMI and displayport
They do, I’m 99% sure I heard it mentioned by someone (I think it was Linus from LTT)
Yeah there’s some complication with it where it’s not 100% supported, but I didn’t quite understand because he didn’t go into detail. I got the sense though that it’s a technicality and basically is fine, but officially it isn’t supported.
That’s awesome. I always wondered why more computers didn’t add support for that in general.
I’ve seen dongle-style things to add CEC support, but I heard mixed things about those.
When I look at this announcement, the hardware is very exciting, for sure. But it is Valve’s dedication to Linux that really has me smiling. I don’t see three hardware devices to buy. I see two big proclamations for which the hardware is the message:
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SteamOS on desktop! It seemed inevitable but it’s still great to see.
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STEAM VR USING LINUX AS ITS TARGET PLATFORM?!?!?
I will grant that it’s very possible I buy all three pieces of the hardware, even though I like building my own PCs. I will also grant that Valve’s support for linux probably would not be what it is without the enshittification of Microsoft’s ecosystem. But in this world I’m gonna go ahead and accept the imperfect good news.
They’ve been pretty great on Linux. They built on the great work of the wine people and have done a lot to push the state forward.
I believe they’ve had a lot of good things to say about the stability of the Linux platform from a development perspective. For all the jank and instability that Linux software exposes, it has a lot more stability in terms of things like kernel and driver interfaces as a point of deliberate design choice. So there’s a lot less work needing to code around the specific versions of drivers being used.
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Where steamphone
I mean, the VR is an ARM chip that can run APKs, so if someone can find a way to plug a SIM card there that’s it.
Doubt I would ever do the VR headset. I simply don’t play the kind of games that work well with (or even need) VR. Although come to think of it, a VR Civilization VI game would be wild.
But the Steam Machine would be interesting to replace the old laptop I currently have running as my multimedia box on my television (streaming, retro gaming, steam mirroring, etc…) It would be more powerful than the well worn old dude I’m currently using.
They did at least do: https://www.meta.com/experiences/sid-meiers-civilization-vii-vr/5781689118524197/?srsltid=AfmBOoqbqaOcZk-uwva84T4NpmPU5A6M8h1LPhsJc2EkCyD5ujrcFI_m
No idea if it is vaguely any good or not…
Its kind of crazy they didn’t make it available on PC. Those graphics look *rough *. I have to imagine the late game turn time/performance is rough too. But, I haven’t played it since I don’t have any Meta devices
Zuck paid for it. That’s why.
He wants it in his eco system.
I’ve got a bit of a VR library, but the new ease of setup with this one does have me considering how I’d use the virtual display features. Even with trackpads, a lot of mouse-driven games aren’t great on Steam Deck, but I’m replaying Baldur’s Gate 2 right now and wondering how the mouse controls might work out in VR.
Real glad I can soon ditch the DualSense Edge and its only half-functional gimmicks !
I will miss the adjustable triggers, but I will NOT miss the randomly incorrect button mappings, and “extra buttons” that get fucked up if you ever connect it to an actual PS5
I mean couldn’t you have used an Xbox or really any Xinput controller like this entire time?
Been waiting for this vr headset to release for years, only to find they’ve used lcd’s instead of OLED screens. I’m so disappointed and pissed.
They said they went LCD because of the light loss due to the lenses.
I dunno if they could implement a controlled backlit array + high constrast panel layer at that scale, but it would be killer if they did and made it seem 80% like a real OLED.
Remindme! When they release a Steam Frame OLED after sales peak.
Hmm. Ok. That’s fair I guess. Still bummed, but I guess I’ll give it a try when it’s released. Still better than a quest.
Fair assessment. It’s got all the bells and whistles except OLED. Makes me wonder if they’re planning on an OLED model in a year or two like they did with the Deck. They know there will be plenty of double dippers.
Apparently OLED has issues with brightness. VR lenses tend to cut out an awful lot of light (I’ve seen a lot of unhelpful diagrams with lines on them that try to explain the problem) so you need a system that outputs a lot of light or you need to use much more expensive lenses.
My guess is valve had a price point and using the better lenses would significantly cut into that.
It’s worth pointing out that I’m pretty sure the PlayStation VR uses the same lenses. I’ve never had a problem with that so I doubt it’ll be a major issue.
I waited long enough. Just gonna go ahead and get the psvr2 with the pc adapter.
let’s hope they sell these globally this time.
well fuck
Did Valve just announce THREE of something?
Holy shit you’re right.
Valve remains committed to an open PC ecosystem
happy noises
I’ll buy the VR headset if, as well as streaming games, you can also play video/mirror your desktop. I know that’s not the market they’re going for, but it seems to me that those are the main use-cases of VR headsets aside from gaming and to my non-tech way of thinking it doesn’t seem harder than streaming a game.
Their streaming system works fine with desktop apps, and it already works with their VR setup on different headsets.
I’ve streamed desktop to a different headset. I was able to also do stuff like mounting an app in a picture frame on the wall of a little VR house.
Using the video player on desktop while streaming was a little jank, but since this is a proper desktop I imagine it’ll be easy enough to switch over and use a normal video player without streaming another computers video player.
play video/mirror your desktop
They have demos of those things in the trailer. Apparently the pass-through is black and white, but it supports peripherals, so adding a color HD camera to the front to pass-through HQ video while desktop working is completely feasible. It is also just a linux computer, so if Valve doesn’t develop the software for it, someone will. Essentially kicking the (very tiny and limited) vision pro market out from under Apple.
The Vision Pro isn’t available outside of North America, has barely no apps and doesn’t support gaming, so I don’t know how Apple expect this to become a major product for them.
The frame fixes basically all of those issues, much wider availability although still not global, supports games and it’s basically a PC so you can edit an Excel document in VR if for some reason that’s what you want to do, has controllers so you’re not relying on finger tracking exclusively, and actually has a decent store of content. Oh and the battery is both larger in capacity and more sensibly designed so that it’s actually part of the device rather than this weird dangly thing you always have to have.
The only downside is an inability to allow me to see my office at the same time. It’s not like the vision pro lets you actually keep the laptop display on anyway so being able to see it isn’t a huge advantage.
It would have been nice if it had colour pass through, but I also don’t really care that it’s not present.
