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I’d love to get into VR but not when a headset costs as much as a whole PC. Where is my no onboard processing hardware, tethered only budget headset? (That doesn’t record everything I do and send it to Zuck)
In terms of budget options you can still buy new, it’s probably pretty much just the PSVR2. Just at this moment you can get it for $300 direct from Sony (it’s listed at $399 but it’s on sale), though you’ll need to buy an adapter to use it on the PC, which is an extra $60. Still, it’s got a pretty decent resolution display, and it’s even got eye tracking, though I think you need a third-party driver to get that working.
It is tethered, though. I dunno.
PCVR is in a slump right now, though, and at this price, I don’t know that Frame is gonna fix that. It might not be the best time to buy new.
Windows mixed reality is calling for you. (You need oasis driver on windows)
on ebay?
I’m still loving my HTC Vive that I bought second hand a few years ago for €300. The Vive is probably too low-res for most (it does have terrible “screen door” effect), but you can get the Valve Index for about that price now, based on a very quick scan of ebay listings.
The old windows mixed reality headsets were that before it got discontinued
It’s probably a reasonable price for the tech, but it’s kind of annoying to see VR get less affordable over time. I couldn’t justify buying the Valve Index just to play a handful of VR games, and I certainly can’t justify this.
$1500 is both exorbitant and reasonable given the circumstances.
I’d really like to have one, but that’s a lot of money.
$1250 would be more reasonable
How about $350
In which world is it exorbitant
Uhhhh this one. The Index launched at $1000 in 2019. If we didn’t live in rampocalypse, I would have expected it to be around $1000 again. But we live in rampocalypse, so $1500 doesn’t feel as bad but it’s still more than most of us are willing to pay.
Yeah, well said. This unfortunately
I would rather wait a few more years for a refurbished steam be headset or buy a more affordable refurbished vr headset from another company
The valve index can’t run any games on its own
That’s a cool new feature, but I think we all kinda know that Valve didn’t want to be selling this thing at $1500.
Truth. It low-key feels like there’s an audience of gamers that think Valve is trying to gouge them or something. As if they don’t know how much work valve company has put in to making games as affordable as possible.
Wait until they learn how much resource Valve put into Waydroid/Lepton, FEX and Proton, and then just gave away to the world completely gratis, as open source. In a world where our hardware has always been subsidized by whatever platform company was trying to wall us into the garden, we need to have honest and frank conversations about supply chain dynamics.
That often isn’t possible with iPad folks, and I’m beginning to think my Steam account is older than some of the people flinging you downvotes out here.
BTW the article is based off Tyler McVicker’s prediction. He was never good at predicting…
The funny thing is even he predicted more than $1100, less than $1500.
So that’s multiple straight lies in the article title.
He predicted both Half-Life: Alyx and Deadlock with details years before the games came out.
He didn’t predict those games. Especially with Deadlock, he did analyze files and watched footage from the leaked gameplays of people not holding the emargo. The many times he did predictions about Deadlock and speculation about what type of game it was, he was not right or very vague that it has to be right. But my point was more about prediction of what Valve will do in future (or prices) and he was not really good at it, at least not better than someone in 4chan. Sometimes it happens to be true by chance, if you do just enough predictions.
He didn’t predict those games.
Not sure what criteria you are going for. He objectively was talking about HLX (codename for Alyx) and Neon Prime (early name for what became Deadlock) years before the respective games released.
watched footage from the leaked gameplays of people not holding the emargo
That’s shortly before release, at that point the game was not a secret anyway.
Of course none of this means he’s any better at guessing prices than anyone else.
He objectively was talking about HLX (codename for Alyx) and Neon Prime (early name for what became Deadlock) years before the respective games released.
As I said, that was about looking in filenames of files and trying to figure out what it was. He had no idea what HLX even was, so he didn’t predict Alyx, he predicted Half-Life 3. Same for Neon Prime… all he had going for was apparently people from the industry talking about the game and about filenames and variables that point to the name Neon Prime. Then he tried to infer what this could be and he was wrong about Neon Prime and Deadlock. All he talked was about the information he had, and any prediction to what the games will be was wrong.
I’m watching Tyler since years…
Admittedly I don’t watch him, you might know better. But I do remember stumbling upon a video of his talking about a new Half Life VR game he was datamining at least 2 years before Alyx came out.
Well that better be good news… I groaned at $1,500 but Ive been waiting YEARS to get into VR because I wanted to wait for whatever new set valve would make and Jesus did it take forever
… I’ll do $1,500 begrudgingly, but it better not be $2k+…
Just based on vibes and RAM shenanigans in recent months I’ve been predicting $1600ish
I’ll still get it as my first vr headset at that price but I won’t be super happy about it
Yay…I still need to get it for my kid :(
I think I’m out at that price. I’m thinking it will be closer to $1000, maybe a bit higher with hardware prices.
Sadly, same. Everything just keeps going up. Except our income.
So? I bought an index for $1000 approx. 8 years ago and it’s still awesome and still going strong. Considering inflation and the value added by being cordless and not needing a high-end gaming pc, $1500 seems pretty reasonable.
At 1500 it’s priced alongside higher end boutique headsets like the big screen beyond and pimax’s offerings.
And that’s not to mention just how much cheaper the Quest 3 is.
Yeah, but then you’d have to own and use a Meta product. Not remotely worth it.
Ugh, here we go again, say it with me now:
Meta sells their hardware at a loss and then make it back through store sales and advertising data. Steam cannot do this because it’s just a PC and they are not an advertising company.
Yeah, and valve could do that too if they wanted.
I mean if they wanted to lose their asses, sure.
They really wouldn’t.
I literally gave away my quest 3 headset because of facebook’s walled garden ecosystem, ads, and telemetry. If I didn’t know someone that was about to buy one I’d have recycled it.
If Valve did the same shit with the Steam Frame I wouldn’t even accept one as a gift. I will absolutely pay a premium for hardware I actually own.
This is not complicated. Sell open hardware at a loss, buyer doesn’t use it to buy games, money is never recuperated. Valve loses their asses.
It’s steam, they hold an effective monopoly on PC game sales.
I’d understand this argument with the steam machine as businesses could buy them cheap for non-gaming use but there really is not much of a non-gaming market for VR hardware.
With the machine they can’t, because it would work so well as a general purpose computer for offices and such. I think they could have subsidized it a bit though as long as it didn’t dip below the price of an equivalent traditional desktop. For the frame though, they absolutely could. I suppose some percentage of users won’t buy from steam, but I don’t think price would affect that percentage much unless it was super cheap. Realistically it’s going to push game sales a lot for valve.
The Frame is even moreso problematic in that regard because it enjoys very little competition. If a business wanted to use a bunch of them for say, training a workforce, they very well might buy them by the thousands, put them into service, and Valve will never see a dollar of it. We saw this happen many times with the Steam Deck. Disney used them to control robots, the military used them to control turrets, and those are just some of the ones we know of.
Back in the day the military bought up thousands of PS4s and used them to make a supercomputer.
What they could do is, since you bought the machine/frame on the store, they could give a certain number of discounts on games purchased after purchasing the device (like giving away Half Life: Alyx with the purchase of the Index/controller). Buy a steam machine, get 5 X% discounts on any games in store, buy a steam frame same except exclusive to VR titles. Still on the fence for my own use, although old, my Vive is still a solid headset
A dollar denied Cuckerberg is worth ten times its face value
Theoretically? Sure. Realistically though? Money is finite for most of us. And some stuff is just out of budget.
Yeah for you maybe, but for the general market is that going to be the case?
I really hope not. I’m really hoping it’ll be around $1000. If it is $1500, I do have enough money that I’ll still buy it, but it would suck.
I would like it but probably around 3000 CAD. I can buy it but probably won’t.
So pathetic. This incredible wait for a ridiculous price.
Works on Linux.
Runs steam games without new purchases.
Runs Windows games in theory on the device.
I probably will pay 1500 for it.
even if if I get a job I am unlikely to make appreciably more than I did in 2015. i was waiting for the next gen of this but looks like its not meant to be.
If it was $1000, not a standalone device, and not wireles, I’d buy it. $1500 for a wireless only headset with a garbage tier PC built in (for some reason?). That’s a hard no.
I feel that its appropriate to say when you’re basically critiquing core aspects of a device that not everything is for everyone
You’ll be able to use it wired. If not officially, ALVR has a wired mode and ALVR will definitely support the Steam Frame.
You can stream games wirelessly from a gaming pc to it.
- If it isn’t wireless, and if it isn’t functional standalone, then the only option would be a tethered headset.
That already exists, get yourself a Vive or even get yourself a Quest 3 and then use the USB tethering mode (Virtual Desktop just shipped this feature, though many of us suitor argue it’s inferior to a healthy WiFi 6 tether).
You, as a consumer, are well served by the existing slate of available products across the past decade…
- I’m relieved to hear that you won’t be buying it, that means that when I can queue for a pre-order that’s one unit I’m closer to bringing home. This is a luxury item in a season of brutal Supply constraints, and I will be fortunate to be able to invest in my amusement, like this.
… For what it’s worth, ARM SOC’s are growing wildly powerful and I will benefit from being able to play local stuff even without tying back to my beefier PC for fullfat experiences.
I already do this when I play steam games , including 3D titles, on a handheld AYN Thor.
I already have a Reverb G2 but it’s getting old and was hoping for something newer. I would rather go without VR than buy anything from Facebook. Sucks the only option for tethered is just “buy an old headset”
I understand arm is getting there. But to run assetto Corsa competizione at a high frame rate with the graphics at max quality, or flight simulator? I doubt it.
And I haven’t looked into it, but even if it can, how would you connect your steering wheel, flight yoke, pedals, shifter, handbrake etc. I mean, if it can, then $1500 is a great price tbh. But I will wait for reviews
That already exists, get yourself a Vive or even get yourself a Quest 3 and then use the USB tethering mode (Virtual Desktop just shipped this feature, though many of us suitor argue it’s inferior to a healthy WiFi 6 tether).
Quest headsets are basically surveillance devices, I run my Quest 2 through a pihole to block any connection to Meta servers, and fully 90% of the DNS requests this thing attempts to make are telemetry I didn’t consent to. Don’t buy a Quest, they’re only cheap because of the massive quantities of highly invasive data they can mine from the microphones, cameras, web traffic through the device, eye-tracking data, etc.
Virtual Desktop still works with local-only, as I understand it, and alternatively there’sUSB tether as an option.
Yes, Meta sucks, and that’s why I literally made a whole new account just for my headset, and then gift purchased virtual desktop to Grant to it, and heavily restrict any of its activity on the live internet like you do.
My remarks were about how tethered VR is already available, and s******* all over a device we haven’t even seen yet just because it can play PC games through translation layers as an option is just wrong. Meanwhile, I have been playing PCVR over Wi-Fi for the past literally 6 years, and I’m completely bewildered at someone with multiple Sim cockpit setups whining and complaining about Valve as if they had done something actually bad.
All of the devices still plug into his desktop. If he wants a subpar connection limiting bandwidth to the headset the option is still available.
I was hoping for 1000€. I might still get it for that.
Actually less than I expected. I won’t be getting one (too expensive), but that’s a decent price for what it is.
There is one thing about the Frame: Its not a general purpose computer like a Steam Machine, and therefore Valve can subsidize it a bit. Maybe? I expect that most Steam Frame customers would play Steam games on it.
It actually is a general purpose ARM PC. Valve says you’ll be able to put any compatible ARM OS you want on the thing (probably just different Linux distros, maybe someone will port LineageOS eventually also), and it comes with a KDE desktop mode like the Deck.
Nobody argues that it isn’t. Let me frame it differently: A sports car is a general purpose car, because it does all what a car has to do. But it is extremely expensive and designed to win races. Instead you could get a car, that is designed to do general purpose stuff like a normal city car. I hope this clears up what I was trying to say.
Well, it actually is. Like the Deck you are free to install your own OS. Apparently there is already an Arch build available.
Yes, but its not as suitable for a general purpose computer like a PC. Its HUGE difference. Anyone want to buy Steam Frame for general purpose computing is better off buying a normal computer (or even Steam Machine), as it is cheaper and x86 based. Well see how powerful that thing is.
I disagree, with proper Linux and a VR desktop mode interface, this thing could end up being a great general purpose VR computer, sort of like what the Apple Vision Pro was trying to do, except not stupid (locked down, proprietary OS, unhinged price, etc.).
That is not what I’m arguing. I think you guys didn’t understand what I was saying. Companies would not buy a Steam Frame to do normal work on it, because it is not powerful and cheap enough to justify it. The problem with the Steam Machine was, it was just a normal X86 computer when you slap a different operating system on it. If Valve was subsidizing the price, then no one in their right mind would buy a different computer and go straight for the Steam Machine. That means Valve would lose money on each machine.
And that’s the point. This could be done with Steam Frame, because it cannot replace a normal desktop PC. If you buy a VR headset, then you most likely will use it for VR. And most likely to play Steam games on it, just like the Steam Deck is used mostly to play Steam games, even if the architecture is a general purpose computing device. In that case the price could be subsidized a little bit.
Being an open platform makes a perfect candidate for a wide variety of use cases that are not gaming, including general computing.
Note: I am NOT arguing you cannot general computing stuff with it. I am arguing that anyone buying Steam Frame does not with the intention to do that only. Most likely anyone purchasing Steam Frame wants to play virtual reality games on Steam. Steam Frame is NOT a perfect candidate for wide variety of uses cases.
A mobile device you put on your head, with ARM architecture is not the perfect device to do general computing only. Anyone buying a Steam Machine could happily ignore the Steam store and do normal PC stuff with it. So that’s why Valve did not subsidize the price. But Steam Frame is not like that. If someone wants to do general computing ONLY, then this is not a device for it. It would be cumbersome to work with, probably underpowered for its price and in general the CPU architecture is not ideal for that.
Compare this to Steam Machine. If the Machine was subsidized by Valve, then it would be cheaper than a comparable PC. In that case any company or other users would buy it to use it without Steam. In which case Valve would lose money on every single hardware.
Honestly, a GrapheneOS or LineageOS phone is a perfectly fine general purpose PC (excluding OEM android because fuck Google Play Services). You can plug it into a keyboard and monitor, enable desktop mode, and use it like a PC. ARM is more than usable for basically all the software most people would ever want to run. The Steam Frame will probably be significantly more powerful than a Google Pixel or whatever, and therefore even more usable.
Nobody argues it isn’t. I think the Steam Frame would fall into a category of Steam Deck, which is even more of a general purpose computer. That’s why it was so cheap, because most people buying it end up playing games on Steam and Valve will profit. But with Steam Machine in example Valve could not compete on price, otherwise they would lose money on each sold Machine without anyone need to use the Steam store.
There is a huge difference of specialized hardware and software like Steam Frame and Steam Deck, compared to a general desktop PC like a Steam Machine.
