t’s certainly been a journey for Valve. A week prior to the Steam Frame’s launch, we spoke with two engineers at Valve about the project: Joy Lyons, hardware engineer, and Jeremy Selan, software engineer. The memory crisis and the price were a big part of that conversation. From that chat, we can confirm that Valve had aimed for a lower price point than the one it’s launching the Frame for today.
Here’s Lyons on the memory crisis:
“We set out to design this hardware with one particular price in mind, but we’ve made choices to make sure that we’re making a product that is choiceful, that people can purchase, they can upgrade with different features later. But we wanted to make sure we had a base product with really great performance. Then that price target shifted due to the ongoing RAM crisis around the world.”
Lyons also said that forecasting for the cost of certain components used in the Steam Frame is an ongoing challenge.
Not exactly boding well of the Steam Deck 2.
I’m sure it is a solid product, but charging $1100 when a comparable option can be found for half the price is insulting. Privacy concerns be damned, they all spy on you. VR is and will always be niche. This product will not appeal to general consumers. There is no killer app and it’s way out of price.
Honestly, what comparable options. I’ve looked. There’s the quest, but it’s sold at a loss, is honestly not very strong and it has a locked ecosystem which is a real boner killer imo.