Again, 500-700 yeah sure. 1.5k? Absolutely not.

It will sell out

I would never have put money on it being less than $1k.

Even the index was expensive and that was in a more affordable time period.

I thought it would even out to about 800 dollars before the component crisis.

Fuck man. I really want to get into VR gaming, but that’s a ridiculous barrier to entry. The Quest 3 is reasonable, but I’m afraid I’ll buy it, love it, and want more.

Unpopular take here, but I think it's a realistic expectation. I bought the valve index several years ago, and that cost me a grand. I would expect next Gen stuff to be even more expensive, even in the best of times. Add all the tech hardware fuckery of the last couple years to the mix and, well, I wouldn't have expected any lower price.

Does it suck? Yeah. Was the price expected? Also yeah.

At one point, Valve had stated that they were shooting for a price under the Index, so that would have been below $1k.

I got a Quest 3 and it completely satiated my VR needs. And in some respects it has advantages over the Frame, such as color passthrough

The Quest would be fine if it weren't for Meta. I have a Quest 2, but I stopped using it over privacy concerns.

It worked great wired to my PC for PCVR. The wireless was pretty spotty.

Looks like I'm never getting into VR for the same reason I didn't years back. Price continues to be expensive, and only cheap options are meta which is a big no.

On one hand, the Valve Index launched for $1000 in 2019. Adjusted for inflation, that is $1306.25. And you needed a powerful PC to be able to use it, where this can be used standalone. Only effectively costing an extra $194 for standalone processing is pretty impressive.

On the other hand, it is difficult to justify this price considering cheaper headsets on the market, like a $600 Meta Quest 3. Unless you dislike Facebook that strongly (justified).

Don’t think valve will mind if you decide it is too expensive, don’t worry

Now that I think about it, would I have to make a Facebook account to use it? Cause that’s a hard fuckin no from me.

This is a complete nothingburger article that's just repeating Tyler McVicker's speculation. I like McVicker, but to act like his guess is insight from a "Valve insider" is dogshit-tier journalism.

So probably 1200 or 1300 on launch - people will think they are getting a deal.

Nope just a meta account. If that's better or worse idk.

I'd happily pay more to not use a Meta product.

Seens like the same thing to me since whatever meta calls themselves its meta as a corporation that creeps me out.

Price aside, do we think it's better than other options?

It's not really next gen tho. The hardware is comparable to Quest 3.

Sucks Valve got back into the hardware right when Chat and Claude ate it all

Fuck me for wanting gaming hardware to be affordable, I guess.

Based on past history of various VR HMD makers, for at least Linux users, I'd bet yes.

But...that's assuming that the user is going to get an HMD in the first place. Like, one "option" is to just not use an HMD, just use a traditional monitor and forego VR-only titles.

I’ve been desperate to get into VR (both as a player and a developer) but being tethered wasn’t for me - it was the biggest gripe I had visiting VR experiences etc. And I dislike Meta on a philosophical and moral level.

So yeah, $1500 for “not Meta” is fine by me.

You are not entitled to everything in this world

It's using snapdragon 8 gen 3 which is more powerful than the xr gen 2 by 25%

I’ll still buy it.

I still can't say it wouldn't be worth it at $1.5k for people that really wanted to get into VR... but unfortunately my price limit is $750 US for me to consider a launch day order, and obviously that ain't happening. With component prices being what they are, it's not realistic for me to expect any lower anymore.

But the best I can hope for is a memory crash and DRAM makers come scrambling back to fill the sinkhole void from the collapsing circular financing cycle. Today that's just a pipe dream.

And it's not owned by meta and many games that you already own will play on it without a PC, and it can be linked to your PC, unlike the $3500 Apple Vision Quest or whatever the hell it was called.

I said this before when they first announced it, but my boss bought the Apple Vision Plus or whatever the hell it was called, and I got to use it, and it was actually a really great experience. Only it's tied to an Apple ecosystem.

I said then that if Valve could bring in their version and it's 60% as good as the Apple headset for under $1,800 then it would be worth it.

My only real concern is dealing with scalpers, and I'm probably not going to be an early adopter, but who knows if I get a Christmas bonus this year or accidentally stumble into a couple extra grand, I might just go ahead and pull the trigger on it.

As a non stand alone piece of hardware I didn’t see the value. With this new system i am not shocked it’s more expensive than the Steam machine. It’s basically its own game system. I’d argue more so than a machine or deck ..

I know people who would pay a full 60 dollars for a game on Steam they could get for free on the Epic Store. I’ve seen people do it out of spite the very week a game was free on Epic. I would not be shocked to see this sell out.

Steam is kind of a cult ..

I skipped the Steam Machine, so I think I’m going to get the Frame unless it’s like $2k.

The market is what the market is, and that doesn’t look like it’s going to get better anytime soon

Yeah. They have you attached a camera to your head that actively maps everything around you in color 3d and sends it to Facebook servers. Anytime I used it I'd take pretty much everything else out of the room. I think if I use it again I may use a deceased relative's account to really fuck with their data.

No one other than meta seems interested in making an affordable midrange headset. I get that they want to push the tech but it's out of the budget for so many gamers that might otherwise be interested in vr.

I'm sure the frame is going to be amazing but I would be happier if I could get something for $500-700, even if it was equivalent to the the decade old HTC vive or similar headset.

Well... there goes all my expectations to leave META VR ecosystem, so long steam frame

If there was a way to hack Meta Quest I might buy one. Finding a hack probably would have been a better use of Valve's resources.

But I wouldn't pay more not to use it, I would just not pay at all. At $1500 I'll just keep not enjoying VR.

What if I told you there's more to a VR headset than the hardware?

I wish it were possible to just flash something else on it like you can on smartphones, and get rid of all the meta stuff on it.

I won't use a Meta product under any circumstance, but I'm not going to pay an unlimited amount of money, either. If the alternative can't get reasonably close to Meta's reasonable prices, that just means I will continue to never get VR at all.

I wouldn't say the Quest is cheaper, you just pay a recurring non-cash cost. It's a price I'm not willing to pay. I'm also not able to pay the expected cost for the Frame right away, but I hope there are enough early adopters to keep the manufacturing line going long enough for me to be able to afford one.

Even Meta has said they will never subsidize again. So there will be no good and cheap VR systems anymore. Only good or cheap.

And the Steam Frame has alot more value added features, not to mention all the components they do have in common are at least a little step up from Quest 3. Other than color passthrough, which will be an add on accessory for those of us that want it. But, nice for the people that don't, they don't have to pay for it. And kind of nice for those of us that do, cuz we'll get to pick which one we want, and I want an expensive one, cuz it's important to me.

Yeah, I use a Quest 3 for 14 hours every day. I will definitely be getting Steam Frame even if this is the price. Or at least I will sign up to get one, up to the lottery if I do, lol. Speaking of... I should stop trying to convince people how awesome it is... no... yeah... Definitely too expensive, you wouldn't even like it..... please don't sign up for the lottery.

Ah who am I kidding... it is very much worth that price for anyone that knows they are gonna put it to good use.

This is pretty much the only option for potentially seamless wireless VR on Linux so it's still going to sell

Comparable in a sense, each component that they actually share. But still all individually upgrades. But for all the components the Steam Frame has that a Quest 3 doesn't even have... literally no comparison. Not to mention functional firmware/operating system. And the community features, and the cool stuff we'll be able to get for the expansion port. And the controllers are much more useful. Not just for VR games, but as actual controllers too.

And they have actual spatial anchoring, you put something at a representative physical point in space, it'll stay exactly there. So you hang a screen on a wall in your house, or in your bathroom, or above your stove... it's there every time, doesn't need to constantly be adjusted, or re-opened. That part of it was such an important feature of the headset that they literally named the headset after it, the Frame system. Quest 3 is so annoying trying to use it that way, not only does stuff subtly shift throughout the day, but you put the headset on tomorrow and it's either in a new random place, or it's gone and you have to put it up again...

The Quest 3 hardware is awesome. It's all the rest that sucks. But using it as a box that launches Virtual Desktop, it's been completely fine.... still getting a Steam Frame as soon as the lottery picks me to be allowed to pay them money.

If it helps, the meta account is just a renamed oculus account, uses all the underlying systems from back then. I didn't have to make one, my oculus account worked.

I mean, I definitely get the paranoia, but people have wiresharked it left and right, and every day... it doesn't. They do harvest what you do on the metaverse, but that is basically gone now anyway, and was always optional. They collect data from any first party products, but like the headset itself, no. It doesn't send anything. And that isn't something you can hide. Like the signal literally has to be sent, and it would be detectable.

They definitely have over the years kept mentioning things they would like to do, like using eye tracking to confirm to advertisers that ads were actually watched and shit, but that never actually came about. The only eye tracking they made so far was on the headset they didn't target at consumers. I'm sure they still have future plans to achieve some of their horrible goals, but as of yet, hasn't happened.

Yeah, out of the box, though color passthrough is already confirmed as an accessory. They just figured no sense making everyone pay for it if it can be done through the accessory slot. Some people don't need color passthrough. And some people will want to buy a higher end one than what would have been included if they did include color passthrough. This way, everyone can be satisfied. And even a color passthrough module that uses 2 cameras and does stereo reconstruction uses 1/4 of the lanes and less than 10% of the bandwidth. So you could still daisychain other accessories too.