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Steam Frame starts at $1059

store.steampowered.com

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Re: Steam Frame starts at $1059

#211

Post by yobert »

bsoqk wrote: post #204
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.

Tangentially related: If I wanted to play Half-Life: Alyx, and spend as little money as possible whilst still having a good experience, what do I need? (I already own a beefy desktop computer)

I played it with a Quest 1 and VirtualDesktop to steam it from my PC. It worked well enough to blow my mind. Of course a Quest 3 would be much better than that nowadays. That's probably the cheapest good experience.

Re: Steam Frame starts at $1059

#212

Post by terribleperson »

The Steam Frame looks like a heck of a device. At the cost, though, I question why they didn't include a better pass-through camera. A device with onboard processing and a good pass-through camera would be very neat. If they were trying to make this an affordable device I'd understand, but it's over a thousand dollars.

Re: Steam Frame starts at $1059

#214

Post by dawnerd »

esskay wrote: post #198
dawnerd wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The scalpers will probably be all over this too.

Thats a lot harder to do now they use a lottery system which if I'm not mistaken also takes account history into account along with physical address.

True but it still happened with the controller at least. But it also backfired. I would have impulse bought day one but they only just in the last week offered me the opportunity to purchase and I passed on it.

Re: Steam Frame starts at $1059

#215

Post by kwanbix »

chrysoprace wrote: post #144

Aussies are getting it at a premium, too. USD$1059 (256GB) should be AUD$1483, retailing for AUD$1609 - a AUD$126 premium. USD$1299 (1TB) should be AUD$1819, retailing for AUD$1969 - a AUD$150 premium!

That is nothing, less than 10%.

Ther are countries that get it at 100% or even 200% more.

Re: Steam Frame starts at $1059

#216

Post by wlesieutre »

bsoqk wrote: post #204
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.

Tangentially related: If I wanted to play Half-Life: Alyx, and spend as little money as possible whilst still having a good experience, what do I need? (I already own a beefy desktop computer)

Probably Quest 3S, and unless things have improved with the native solution you'll want to pick up the "Virtual Desktop" app for better wireless streaming.

It's not very good resolution by today's standards but it's the cheap entry point. Quest 3 (non-S) has resolution comparable to the Steam Frame but costs $250 more.

If you only want to use it for streaming, you might look a used Quest 2, which has similar optics and screens as the 3S. I'm not sure the state of software support or whether its worse CPU/GPU matter for streaming performance. But I bet they're very cheap secondhand by now.

Re: Steam Frame starts at $1059

#217

Post by c7b »

tapoxi wrote: post #134
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.

This machine runs Linux, it comes with KDE. This is the open Apple Vision Pro alternative that you can use as a real computer. It comes with a black and white passthrough camera but you can add on a 5K color one. There's ongoing work for a full Plasma XR mode, so you aren't restricted to a "virtual desktop" experience: https://invent.kde.org/plasma/kwin/-/merge_requests/8671

Being able to comfortably sit back / lie down and work is an interesting proposition. The Apple Vision Pro is too bulky and expensive to carry that whole category on its own, they need an 'Android equivalent'. But I think Apple messed this up by creating an absolute patent minefield (some 5k patents for AVP features iirc).

Re: Steam Frame starts at $1059

#219

Post by tpmoney »

fg137 wrote: post #87
tpmoney wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Eh, I don't think that's how the maths works, especially for products that are in completely different categories. For starters, display costs relatively much more on a VR headset compared to a 6" phone screen, the unit cost is much lower for a phone that is sold in many millions, the marketing cost is different etc. There will likely be actual breakdowns that provide some perspective into this.

Sure, it's not one to one, so the fact that the headset is so close to the retail price of a presumably much cheaper per unit flagship phone is why I don't really think the pricing is that bad for what it is.
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