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Steam Frame starts at $1059

store.steampowered.com

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Re: Steam Frame starts at $1059

#61

Post by chaosharmonic »

njovin wrote: post #47
sporp wrote: post #16

Half-Life Alyx is the greatest gaming experience I have ever had the pleasure to witness. I now occasionally VR golf. It's a steep price for a niche with not a lot of games.

Everyone is missing maybe the biggest point - this isn't just a VR device. You can run some/many (depending on your library) of your regular Steam games on a 'flat screen' inside the VR environment, which makes this much more like a SteamDeck with a giant private screen for a lot of people.

I think even that's an understatement.

My tinfoil-hat take is that Lepton looks like it's just aimed at Facebook but will ultimately make Google's Android less... uniquely impenetrable. Certain hardware-dependent stuff will probably never fully work here (GPS for instance), but having a registry of what is and isn't compatible with a third-party Android derivative, on a specific reference device, will benefit every third-party Android derivative. And not that it won't have similar anticheat issues, but having a games ecosystem outside of Google Play will also cover some of the infrastructure that would require that dependency otherwise -- including payments.

And not that I don't see a net positive if gacha games never successfully make the jump... but as a Linux device there's also a lot of stuff where you just don't have to care about Play Integrity, because instead you can just run the PC version and/or a desktop browser.

(edit: shameless plug for my recent, longer writeup on this @ bhmt.dev/blog/frame)

Re: Steam Frame starts at $1059

#62

Post by everyone »

ninininino wrote: post #50
njovin wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everyone is missing maybe the biggest point - this isn't just a VR device. You can run some/many (depending on your library) of your regular Steam games on a 'flat screen' inside the VR environment, which makes this much more like a SteamDeck with a giant private screen for a lot of people.

That's already true for most PC VR headsets. Edit: I missed the point here, see reply.

Also VR is just not somewhere you want to be.. Its worth it in short bursts for playing Alyx or golf with a friend, but it's not comfortable, you wanna get that thing off asap.. Playing a conventional 40+ hour game in it would be awful.

I even downloaded some 3d movies to try watching in VR, pacific rim and avatar movies (there's not that many 3d movies) but I didnt get far into them, the 3d was more of a distraction than anything. Flat screen is just superior imo.

Hopefully Valve make a sequel to Alyx to help sell the new headset.

Re: Steam Frame starts at $1059

#63

Post by bsimpson »

boringg wrote: post #35
sporp wrote: post #16

Half-Life Alyx is the greatest gaming experience I have ever had the pleasure to witness. I now occasionally VR golf. It's a steep price for a niche with not a lot of games.

Gonna try it out on my m1 mbp because of this comment. Been waiting to play alyx forever but I didn't know a way to get mac to work - theres a solution now. Also VR headset has limited re-playability ... table tennis was my VR golf.

I got a Legion Go 3y ago for this reason. Alyx and SteamOS were both draws as a lifelong Mac/Nintendo kid.

Re: Steam Frame starts at $1059

#64

Post by rvz »

bigyabai wrote: post #38
rvz wrote: post #34

No better than the rest of the VR headsets that came before it and almost no-one wants them. These headsets will end up collecting dust with the Apple Vision Pro and the Meta Quest Pro. We gave VR headsets enough time and this is just going to be a repeat failure of the previous ones. Glasses such as the XReal on the other hand have a far better future than these VR headsets.

The XReal is practically guaranteed to have sold less units than any generation of the Quest hardware.

Which means? We should buy the Meta Quest / Quest Pro headset? I don't think so.

Maybe that's the reason why the Meta Quest Pro is in "so much demand" that Meta is no longer selling them anymore. Apple is not even bothering to restock Vision Pro either.

So much demand /s

I am saying VR had a great run. We are not in the Covid era anymore which the Quest greatly benefited from this. VR has a very limited future and it shows.

Re: Steam Frame starts at $1059

#65

Post by tpmoney »

sergiotapia wrote: post #20

Brutal pricing. It would have been brutal at $600. Having said that, there really is no other game quite like Half Life Alyx. It's so good, immersive and one of a kind. Perhaps worth the price of admission. It's so good that it kind of ruined VR gaming for me because all other games kind of felt like tech demos from that point on. Yikes, what a terrible price. 55 minutes playing on-device Half Life Alyx. 1hr 30min st…

Is it really that bad? The hardware processing and storage is effectively a S24 which retails for $800. Add the additional displays, cameras and controllers, an extra $250 doesn’t seem that out there.

Re: Steam Frame starts at $1059

#66

Post by wolvoleo »

njovin wrote: post #47
sporp wrote: post #16

Half-Life Alyx is the greatest gaming experience I have ever had the pleasure to witness. I now occasionally VR golf. It's a steep price for a niche with not a lot of games.

Everyone is missing maybe the biggest point - this isn't just a VR device. You can run some/many (depending on your library) of your regular Steam games on a 'flat screen' inside the VR environment, which makes this much more like a SteamDeck with a giant private screen for a lot of people.

Honestly as a VR enthusiast this is the least interesting feature by far.

If I want to game with glasses I'll just use my $200 xreal airs. I do sometimes on holidays using Samsung DeX and a gamepad, and GeForce now. Works well, I played through half of Cyberpunk that way.

Re: Steam Frame starts at $1059

#67

Post by bsimpson »

kikkia wrote: post #15

If use for solely VR Gaming, and you don't care a ton about the privacy aspect, it is a hard sell against a new or used Q3. However, for myself personally I love the idea of it as a device I can tinker with and have full control over. I would love to also replace my laptop with it while traveling. Especially with a small wireless keyboard it has a good chance to replace my laptop for tinkering/gaming on the go. With…

Doesn't wearing a headset in public have antisocial "Glasshole" vibes?

Honestly, people who cowork in public already give me the ick. Maybe immersing yourself in a headset is just a physical manifestation of the digital immersion that is already plaguing public spaces.

Re: Steam Frame starts at $1059

#68

Post by idle_zealot »

kakacik wrote: post #56
njovin wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everyone is missing maybe the biggest point - this isn't just a VR device. You can run some/many (depending on your library) of your regular Steam games on a 'flat screen' inside the VR environment, which makes this much more like a SteamDeck with a giant private screen for a lot of people.

How long is that comfortable? For sure not couple of hours in 1 go

> For sure not couple of hours in 1 go

Worry not! That's how long the battery lasts!

Re: Steam Frame starts at $1059

#69

Post by spijdar »

I think the only way this is really compelling is if it's able to effectively function as a virtual Linux desktop with a reasonably clear floating monitor in front of you.

I'm not sure that's appealing to me for a couple reasons that mostly boil down to "I don't really want a computer strapped to my face for hours at a time", but I'm the right kind of weirdo who sees the appeal in being able to eliminate the 32 inch monitor from my desk. I'd love to have all this desk space back to put "not computers" in. Or even just leave it empty.

Outside that, so much of this feels very ... I dunno. Answer in pursuit of question. Sure, I can play my Steam library "anywhere" (* caveats apply), but how often do I really want to do that, and especially how often do I want to take the very expensive gadget around to do that?

I've got a Lenovo x86 handheld purchased for around $500, which I'd already be a bit reluctant to drag out on the train or wherever public. For an even more expensive headset with optics and other difficult-to-clean parts, much more so.

VR games themselves are very "meh" to me. Some are insanely cool, but they just aren't enough to rationalize buying a headset. I've got a CV1 that's collected dust for years because it's just not worth it.

It looks like this does support a pretty robust sort of virtual desktop environment, though. That could make this almost compelling, I think. But that's a steep price for "it's almost interesting"...

Re: Steam Frame starts at $1059

#70

Post by bee_rider »

RajT88 wrote: post #46
Analemma_ wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

HL:A is incredible, and I think it's still the best single-player VR game ever made, but it's almost seven years old now. It's pretty clear that this software ecosystem is dead.

I suspect that the current design of VR/AR is not likely to get cheap enough and light/small enough to catch on in a big way. Kind of seems like diminishing returns on headset improvements at this point.

The Xreal augmented reality sunglasses type designs look a lot more interesting. I’m sure they sacrifice a lot of visual quality compared to a full gaming headset, but the general pitch makes more sense.
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