1 Like
Thats what I thought. I told my Son its in no mans land. Too expensive to compete with Quest 3/4 and too low spec to compete with Beyond2/Dream Air.
Not sure who’s going to buy it?
All these years for a small bump in resolution and wifi. Valve screwed up.
2 Likes
Steam Machine is another disappointement. It would be great if Steam machine was like a Game/media machine like PS5 but it looks like its SteamOS so who’s going to buy it when you can buy a PC? Or a PS5? Doesn’t make much sense.
Valve would have done better if Steam Machine was a VR Cinema Server that could transmit movies in 4k to multiple headsets to a new Micro-OLED 4k HMD.
It’s all a bit meh.
Valve Index was exciting, The controllers/Over ear speakers/Finger tracking - all gone.
All Valve had to do for success was release an Index 2 with 140+ FOV. That was it.
bingo
You don’t see the potential, this HMD will be a legendary device, it has very bright future
Meta Q3 is a piece of junk in comparison to it. The software! Software, Linux, foveated rendering / streaming, eas of use & seamless UX with interdevices communication, I bet they will add steam deck / PC co processing stuff so you basically won’t even stream in traditional way, you will run game on standalone but will use some GPU/CPU coprocessing power to get things smooth, it will be total latency miracle.
No one on the market close to this. Only Apple but they miss game context & infrastructure for it
it isn’t gone, new controllers support finger tracking, look the vids with more attention there was few scenes where they used separate finger tracking as it was with knuckles
no that wasn’t, if they had do it, it was a realy huge dissapointment, finaly we have mature standaolone PC based hmd, it’s new market, new sales, new investments, whole new ecosystem
We already have a BSB2, why we need another wired PC? I would like to have a 185 gramss soft strap HMD from them with LCDs & high res, but it’s very minor.
It’s LINUX! You can design / work right on the device without any virtual desktops natevely. E.g. run blender, slice & 3D print, code / serf / media consumtion on normal mature OS not that Meta junk (Apple is good in this regard as well) it’s relatevely light & it’s balanced with battery on the back right out the box
Meta Quests with all their junk software & ugly practices are in a big trouble, only 300-400 $ price can keep they up for newbies market & tons of money they used to attract devs for some exclusives
We finally have a console with huge market & userbase, spread across all over with world with EYE TRACKING! We finally can receive common standard for this feature which may be widely adopted in the game market (I didn’t check but I guess we already have OpenXR specification for it, so we will have solid standard implementation in this case)
Nobody did normal mass market eye tracking so far, that’s the first pretendent, Apple did, but they have no games, so that didnt have any impact (at least I saw) on the gaming market. And Quest Pro just was a software / advertising disaster while it’s eye tracking was good one, they just made more hurt to the industry with in in regard to ET than did anything positive.
What about steam machine
Steam Machine is another disappointement.
What are you talking about? What a disappointment?
It’s best they could do. An average power (6x times more powerfull than steam deack) device that allows you to play 4k@60 with FSR, in case of mass adotion (& it will be a very possible scenario if the price won’t be too steep)
Users who have no tech knowledge, kids, teens or ppl who have no time to tinker, build PCs etc (average users) just buy this box & that’s it, no issues with support, no issues with hardware compatibility, no issues with drives / linux (did you try to setup a Linux yourself? It’s now magically works on its own without any user’s participation), hardware manufactures will add support to some feature previously missed - e.g. PS dualshock can’t use mic when you use it wiressly due to proprietary protocol, mb they will add it coz now they have the reason, if they won’t other will add own drivers for own hardware etc, its a snow ball effect. Game / Software evs now will have specific chipset & specific system / hardware which they will be able optimize their software / games for, it means it will work the most optimal way with minimal cost. It’s Linux in the end, massive impact on that field & industry.
I mean all those things are earth shuttering in regard to innovations & good market strategy decisions. Very thought throught decisions, very balanced, very understandable.
And you say meh, uh, it’s not impressive, dissapointment.
Lol, what do you think they had to do? Build a 5090 based high end console for 5-10k$ what nobody would buy? Are you serious?
You want a high end of high ends? Np buy yourself a 50k$ system & tinker it on your own, SteamOS can be installed to it more seamlessly than ever before. You have an option. It wasn’t possible without huge dev effort in the past
Haha I love your enthusiasm. But definitely don’t share it unfortunately. All i see is a quest 3 with even more sde and black/white pass-through. Going to skip for sure.
2 Likes
Its hard to say one way or the other as we don’t know the cost yet. But I think Valve will watch how this is recieved before putting a price on it.
I currently own a Pico4 which has the same 2160x2160 resolution. Am I going to but the Frame for the same resolution? Am I going to buy the Frame for Foveated Streaming when Pico 4 does streaming? Theres nothing to make me want to upgrade to the Frame.
So new users to VR have the choice to buy Frame @$xxx or Quest3 or Quest3S. They still get wireless streaming to the PC with Steams native app. If Steam Frame is going to sell it needs to be at the same price point as Quest3 at all times.
Steam machine has less use than a PC unless it gets a ton of native apps. But Valve did not advertise this as a media player, but it could be. It also needs to be priced at PS5 levels which comes with 1T of storage and 1 controller for £429 on Amazon.
The fact the Steam Machine is a low end PC mean no one will buy it for high end PC games. No one will buy it for VR simulators and everyone else has a PS5.
I just dont see Steam Machine gaining traction and its not upgradable making it as much use as a laptop.
1 Like
Not at all. If I had a choice and I’ve said this for many years Id build a puck with all the compute inside with an external battery that you can wear either on a belt or backpack. Then relead a 4k MicroOled HMD with no compute and a short tether.The Wifi is in the compute unit not the HMD where your eye balls and brain are so they don’t get fried.
My way the HMD is dirt cheap as you have the display port for direct PCVR.
Yes. I’m not sure if Frame is mean to take on Quest3 or if Steammachine is meant to take on PS5.
None of the options Valve presented are attractive to me. Who ae they meant to be for? Kids? Adults with no money? Adults with money? People who don’t like Windows or PCs?
If Steam OS was available for X86 PCs how many people would dump Windows? Not many.
On a positive note maybe a third party will make a more powerfully fully functional Steam Machine that can do VR and high end games for £1000. Then I think it wil gain traction and draw people away from Windows for that dedicated Media Theater experience.
I also have a Pico 4, while its a not bad device & comfort is very decent, the lenses have yellow tint, resolution is worse than Q3 (Tested in first impression vid said Frame has about Q3 level of sharpness in regard to resolution). It has geometry d7stortions & streaming is meh, I used VD, didnt check Steam link, but the experienfe & dead native standalone games support made this HMD not attractive for me.
We’re just from different worlds, I have high end, my daily driver vr is BSB with higher res but Frame is such an attractive device for me, its just a quality of life in VR regard & seamless trouble free / technologically advanced UX
Not really. I’m waiting for high end device that improves on FOV. Boba3 would be perfect and have me upgrade in a heartbeat.
But I’m not going to upgrade a £300 HMD for the same resolution or same FOV.
I like high end stuff. I have a 166” screen for my PS5 and GT.
My expectations for 2025 are 140FOV Micro OLED in a Pico5 sized HMD for around £1000.
You know, there are always some paper specs & some easy to understand matters like resolution / FOV numbers & when you compare it on a paper it looks very straightforward & clear - the bigger the number the better (no so easy IRL though when you put 8k per eye 220 FOV hmd on your head & it starts to destroy your backbone’s structures & overall XP is just awful)
Though returning back in 2018-2020 When you had a VR device it didn’t work maxed out of the box, you always had to do ton of stuff to make as better experience as possible - e.g. the image was soft & not pleasant, what you had to do is to install reshade with sharpening, make 350% supersampling, tinker settings for the whole day time & whoalya it started to look decent, it means that same device with same res for 98% of consumers never reached the max potential in terms of resoltuion & UX it could. Those all devices already became obsolete but ppl even didn’t get they used it suboptimal.
It’s very important when you have a solid componay like Apple or Valve (not HTC / Meta / Samsung & all that companies that just do one or another part of UX & rely on other market’s players to cover the rest points - optics / software / games / firmware etc, in all those cases the experience is awful or at least suboptimal with tons of quirks, like it was for HT Reverb for AMD users). When a company does all that maixng out settings, drivers optimizations, foveated / rendering \ streaming, performance & latency improvements. It’s just another level of quality. You just grab your device & enjoy maxed out experience out of the box that works seamlessly, have ongoing support & huge userbase that reports issues & it gets polished over time even better.
No one device apart of Apple Vision allows you to run dedicated professional software (like Blender or IDE for development) directly on the headset without any virtual desktops & streaming. It’s not standalone replic apss with poor quality & huge issues in regard to bugs / usability & etc, it just doesn’t work normally. I hate those times when I worked on Quest 2 with VD & all those constant issues with audio drivers, popping up windowns with VD on it’s own, head lock & themes changes on their own & so on, just not optimized software junk & even at times it works very decent it always broke in few weeks after new drivers realease or firmware / software updates. VD wasn’t that bad but it added layer of friction that always took some time.
I just can’t normally explain you how much those things are important. When you just put the hmd on & everything works, you don’t need to do additional clicks, you just consume the content, you can use your hmd without controllers by looking & using button like it was with index, it all super minor but super important things. All drivers works, image as sharp as your hardware potential & when you play / work you aren’t constantly hit by endless small issues & inconceniences.
Only Vision Pro achieved that level of fiedelity but unfortunately they are beyond any game market & even have no controllers (there are attempts like ALVR & some third party devices but it’s all suboptimal xp leading to frustration + the HMD itself is heavy as Q3)
There is the reson why index despite it’s so freaking obsolete (6 years old!) & completely outdated still make ppl buy it & stress due to it’s EOL cycle & manufacure canceling, because it gave that seamless experience for many ppl. Me having high end VR GPU & many high end devices still liking the hmd & I want to use it despite it’s resolution. It’s main cons are weight, resoltuion & heat, that’s all, if they would fix those 3 points the PC VR market would be way better than before. BSB has huge issues with heat comfort & glare becuase it’s a microoled device. If not heat (glare isn’t that bad) it would be already super good device, I just look in it & the resoltuion is so sharp, not 4k but definetely around 2k IRL monitor, I don’t see any pixels I don’t need any bumps in resolution TBH & I use it everyday for productivity (working with text data). It’s weight is super good (107 gramms), the only issue is comfort & it’s due to heat, but the device is very solid & I like it. They are very close to Valve in terms of quality & development but lack some fields expertise so despite the device is a very good one, it had some issue with steam integration & some additional quirks like low current for AUX USB port (issues with connecting some audio straps like OG Index speakers etc).
We just have no mature VR developers apart of Valve & Apple. Actually I believe Pico (Bydance could be the one if they had money & market but they couldn’t). Meta despite having money have no any brain & their business decisions are market breaking, they are just trying to make money, they don’t love the VR, despite money attracted a few good inspired engineers & they made a huge impact on the VR on behalf of Meta, the other part of company always does something controvesional & break the most important things which just repel all enthusiast from them. They even can’t do normal OS. Many talented ppls are leaded by dumb asses, ppl arrive & leave & they always have issues with loosing context & quality of development degrades drastically, they are just not the right company to lead VR forward, despite their good hardware, software & idealogy is a complete nightmare.
I have some handheld devices like Nintendo & Steam deck & while Nintendo is one of the companies that do decent stuff the Deck is just on another level, it has super open OS, I use blender, 3d printing stuff on it, it plays windows games on linux without issue, it fully integrated with Steam, it’s just another grade device.
I will always buy Valve hardware untill they do what they currently do. Its just another phylosophy like it was older times when everybody tried to make ppl buy a hardware & dissalow to install or use thrid party firmware on it, when GNU & Stallman was a fresh air. I use Linux all my life, I didn’t use Windows for a decade I guess untill 2016 when VR became a thing & Linux just didn’t have any support there. I don’t see any issue you talking about in regard to limited XP etc, you know it’s not 2000 anymore, it’s 2025, in professional area Linux takes majority of the market, I make living using it, I don’t have any inconceniences for my professional acitvity using Linux. And whats happening now is a very good direction. I had so many hopes on Lynx & it’s open infrasctruction but that guy spoiled everything. Anyware it’s pointless to argue here, time will tell will the devices be popular & market shuttering or it will be a complete failure, as we see Index was an iconic VR device & is still popular.
It’s strange then if Index was so popular why did valve not release an Index2 with upgraded controllers, 2.5k displays, smaller form factor.
Valve have thrown that success away and now chase the wireless world that more expensive than Quedt3 and not as a display port HMD.
Valve could have made a statement. PCVR is where the future lies. Wide FOV is what people want. Hi resolutions is what people want. Over ear audio is what people want. Better cheaper Knuckle controllers is what people want.
Or a cheap Quest3S clone for £200 minus the Meta store.
Steam Frame doesn’t really fit in unless it’s priced at Quedt3 prices including the WiFi module.
It just seems like we waited 6 years for very little.
That’s not strange at all
Index is indeed popular, but it’s popular in niche market of VR enthusiast & some heavy VR users, which is a very small % of the market.
Instead of adjusting wired hmd to keep their playerbase they target mass market with average gamers, the market that Meta Quest previouslly targeted, especially when they saw how much units was sold by Meta due to hese factors:
-
No base stations (personally I hate them dropping it, but I see the reasons, I still love lighthouse tracking), No need to setup base station & drill walls \ buy sticks, it’s way cheaper & lets more users buy it
-
No PC required (no money to buy everything you still can buy hmd & play directly windowns games on it)
-
You can grab the hmd everywhere & show your friends, it will pop up on public more frequently & gain free advertising
-
You can buy relatevly not expensive console (Gabe box aka Steam Machine) & stream AAA games to Frame
-
More markets - atrractions like Meta did where multiple players in the same IRL building \ area play FPS etc
-
Its business friendly - demos, NDA, etc, no spying
-
Fintness games are more enjoyable with wires free hmd (not the high end content though)
-
Very cheap & affordable with a good hardware quality.
My bet is that Frame will cost around 700$ (will be better if they can put 550, absolutely fantastick if it will be 400-450$) while Gabe Box will be around PS5 price, otherwise it will be still popular but probably won’t be spread as wide as PS5 & Quests, but over years it will anyway take significant part of the market.
They decided to expand their market & provide a platform for more games generes they had possibility before (now VR devs can do more stuff with it that with wire HMD). They at the end game selling platform company & be able to sell more games & have more interfaces to interact with those games & have potentially new hardware to play the games previously they couldn’t offer is a big plus in regard to thier business strategy, that’s a healthy decision. I personally like wired VRs the most, though I like standalones as well & my usual setup was - 1 wired daily driver & Meta Quest 2 & now 3, so I can play tennis, echo vr & other titles & take hmd with me in travels when need & have some spatial computing capability like serf web, watch youtube, use ssh terminals with Quest android sideloaded terminus app & open vpn & have some privacy in public spaces doing NDA stuff (other ppl don’t see your display) which worked quite good.
Not bad things at all. I guess one day they will release the updated wired HMD, but now we have Beyond & I guess it could impact their decision, as it’s good solid PCVR wired Steam based hmd they don’t feel the rush to do it + if they would do it, it would impact Bigscreen sales & business that way, I guess they like Bigscreen & appreciate thier VR effort as well, as steam integration goes relatevely seamless. Probably Valve even helped them with some hardware related stuff (speculation).
This thing just looks completly gourgeous, it emitts rays of quality.
Having all those done, they need very little to attach a display port to it & throw all standalone features away to make it as light as possible. I bet they won’t do it, at least in next years, but lets see.
Hopefully a third party like Bigscreen or even Pimax can jump on the Frame bandwagon and release a high end version in the future. Valves version could be just the reference design for others to follow.