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Announcing new Steam Hardware from Valve: Steam Controller, Steam Machine, and Steam Frame are coming in 2026. Just like Steam Deck, all three devices are optimized for Steam and designed for players to get even more out of their Steam library.
Steam Machine looks quite intriguing, as well as the VR set. Depending on the pricing and specs, I could see myself using these.
The VR headset seems to be a major downgrade from expectations.
Three year old SoC, subpar quality LCD displays without local dimming (and apparently very bad screen door effect)… the eye tracking and custom wireless with foveated codec is a nice touch though. I think the main benefit here will be the Proton ARM translation layer and the ability to run SteamOS on other headsets.
The most disappointing part is the rumoured pricing of “aiming to be under $1000”. I mean I get it, Meta had us spoiled with the $300-400 headsets, but this, aside the software goodies, is hardly better hardware wise than the current Quest 3, will cost approximately twice as much (unless Valve really cuts that “under $1000” target back a lot)… If the Steam layer gets cloned onto the Quest 3, the Frame loses all of its benefits, really.
I’m still excited for it, but found it somewhat lackluster.
It’s marketed as a “streaming first” headset. It includes a 6e USB router in the box. The headset has WiFi 7.
It’s also being marketed as a standalone headset. Absolutely no excuse for using a 3yo SoC when much better options are available at not significantly different prices.
Also let’s not forget this is Qualcomm we’re talking about, the company that drops support for even their most popular chips after 3-4 years. Which in turn heavily limits any updates this SoC will receive. Even performance questions aside, using a SoC that is guaranteed to go unsupported within the first year of sales is just a bad idea.
It’s likely because of valve needing Linux support. I’m surprised they even got Qualcomm to agree to give them drivers for that chip.
$1 is “under $1000”.
at $999, even for the 1TB model, this is a really tough sell.
I’m not sure I’d get one, even though I love what they’re doing, and want to support it.
I really hope, that the “under $1000” is a misunderstanding from the “cheaper than index”, which currently sells for 539€ (~$625, incl tax) without controller and base stations.
That would be a great price.
I can just hope it’s nearer to that than the $1000.
Well the primary competition for the Frame, especially with the hardware limitations, is definitely the Quest lineup rather than the new Android XR headsets or the AVP. So pricing should reflect that.
IMO anything above $600-650 will be a super hard sell for anyone but hardcore Valve fanboys.
Where did you hear about the very bad screen door effect?
Regarding the price, as far as I know, Meta only sells the Quest 3 for $500 because they sell every unit at a significant loss. I don’t imagine that Valve can afford or wants to do that. I recall reading that any other company would need to sell the Quest 3 for 2-3x the price in order to make money. In other words, Meta has been “dumping” to dominate the market.
As far as Steam layer getting cloned onto the Quest 3, I think Meta would do everything in their power to keep that from happening.
Meta doesn’t sell Quest units for a loss anymore. That’s what the “recent” price hike was about, raising unit prices by $150-200.
The “really bad screen door effect” was mentioned by multiple reviewers.
It’s about 30% faster than the quest GPU wise or similar to a 1050 in shader performance, a bit behind a 1050 on some other things.
It will probably be playing PC games at 720 to 1080p, upscaled and framengend to 4k at 90hz. That’s not terrible considering the power usage of the device. It has to run off of batteries. If it’s much over $500 it won’t be a huge hit, if it’s 650 or less, then it will likely become the best choice for VR but not break into the mainstream. The steam machine, if it can hit $500 would be very popular, although $500 is not really a lot of money these days with all the inflation.
All 3 new announced hardware looks good to me! Although I would probably have less need for the Machine because I already have a (old) gaming PC. I’ll have to compare benchmarks. I’m most excited for the VR set.
dont expect much from the machine performance wise given its specs (basically assume about ps5 performance)
the vr headset though is actually the more interesting product when it comes to effort put into it.
curious to see how much the snapdragon 8 gen 3 handles linux arm to x86 performance. ive seen the same chipset for android arm to x86 performance (see arm based chinese handhelds like Ayn Odin, using game native/game hub)
pitching the headset as both a vr device and what is essentially a monitor/all in one is a choice.
I’d be surprised to see PS5 level performance from something much smaller and with much less venting…
It’s not that much smaller, and like 80% of the GabeCube seems to be cooling…
The PS5 is that bulky because of the stupid exterior shell design, and that big because Sony went into weird directions with the cooling. Reformat that into a more traditional form factor and you can reduce overall size by 30-50%. Hell, there’s gaming oriented mini PCs that are 1/2-1/3 the size of a PS5 Slim, with double the performance…
Sure, for triple the price. Steam Machine’s draw here is that it will likely be around PS5, possibly PS5 Pro level performance for around the same price (they said entry level gaming PC, so I’m guessing base price around 600).
Also, kudos for GabeCube, perfect nickname
Triple the price? The fuck are you talking about?
Gaming-oriented mini PCs match the PS5 performance around $300. Around $600-800 you’ll even get dedicated (albeit mobile) GPUs.
I don’t think so.
I’d like to see a link to a parts list that provides PS5 level performance for $300 in any form factor.
The switch 2 is essentially ps4 level. Ps5 is what…5 years old, and based on chips a year or so beyond that? I don’t think it’s crazy at all to expect ps5 grade performance in this form factor coming next year.
it basically has less cpu cores, (6c/12t vs ps5 8c/16t) and less GPU compute units (28CU vs 36CU), however the GabeCube uses newer CPU and GPU architecture compared to the PS5 (Zen 4 vs PS5’s Zen 2, RDNA3 instead of PS5’s RNDA2) to make up a little bit of ground. hence why if you had to give it a rough performance, its near a PS5, but not exactly quite there.
I don’t think the newer architecture will make up for all of that but 🤞🤞
RDNA2 > RDNA3 is liek ~10% gen over gen, so gpu wise, its still sort of behind. CPU wise, Zen 2 > Zen 4 is a huge jump
Thanks for estimating that will be similar to PS5 performance.