Support NeoGAF

[Ozriel]

Microsoft getting beaten to market by a company a fragment of its size is seriously baffling. This is getting announced right as Microsoft pushes a half-baked Xbox interface for Windows 11 too.

Meetings are almost assuredly happening in Redmond about this lol.

Lol people are still digesting the news so give it time.

Off the cuff, I think this will really depend on pricing.

SteamOS is definitely preferable to me than Windows for this usecase, but I think the lack of anti-cheat is gonna be a massive deterrent to the majority of gamers.

This will probably sell to the same ppl who bought the Deck imo. People with big Steam libraries who want a nice couch experience.

Man, imagine the posts here if Microsoft launched their next console as an RDNA 3 + fsr3 console with 8GB VRAM.

How in the world is it 'baffling' when anyone playing in the high end space is waiting for RDNA 5?

 

[Buggy Loop]

They are trying to sell Steam Frame for rumored $1200 with specs from 3 years ago when you can buy Samsung Galaxy XR with 4k per eye OLEDs

XR released last month? October 2025. Was it 3 years ago?

XR has lower tier snapdragon, XR2+ gen 2 while frame is Snapdragon 8 gen 3. , high resolution microOLED sure (good luck driving 3840p dual panel on a 5090?), but low Hz of 90 (72Hz standard) while frame has 120Hz and 144Hz coming up, XR headset cost $1800 and controllers are adders

185g visor and 440g total (battery pack in the back), while XR is 545g total. Frame will be much much more comfortable. Its incredible they even achieved that weight for the visor.

So if by trying to sell its that, I would say its a damn good deal.

or big screen beyond 2 for $1000 with 2,5k per eye.

No controllers, need to buy valve controllers, no inside-out tracking so again you need to buy the tracking base stations from valve, displayport because its not wireless, no standalone chipset.

 

[Kvally]

Well again it depends on the price as well as performance for thia to succeed. Some are saying this will be the new competitor for PS but actually, for me, I think this will be more of a competition for MS xbox new pc hybrid direction.

Well if the next Xbox is $1200-$1500 as claimed here on gaf, the Xbox won't be in competition for anything.

I don't think this will compete at all with PS and Xbox. More likely a focus grabbing entry level PC gamers.

 

[DarkShadowXI]

I doubt this is targeted towards people who cannot accept less than 100fps

100%

This is for the Steam Deck crowd. Not the ROG Ally Xbox X or Legion Go 2 crowd.

 

[diffusionx]

It would be cool if we finally after multiple decades get a viable "console" PC experience, but I think the specs are too modest to appeal to people who would want this over a PS5.

The VR headset, not sure what it is doing over a Quest. The controller, at least it looks usable unlike the SC1.

 

[TintoConCasera]

Do we know the price of the new VR headset? I want one.

 

[SneakersSO]

Do you believe any one of these announced devices will outsell the Series consoles, or are you referring to the Magnus devices?

Magnus device, but really, i'm talking about the actual competition being on potential growth expansion for SteamOS being a existential threat to the grip Windows has had on PC gaming

 

[nial]

K KeplerL2 Is there any reason for something like this to not use RDNA4?

 

[MiguelItUp]

Do we know the price of the new VR headset? I want one.

Not yet, I want them all, lmao.

 

[rkofan87]

It's official:

https://store.steampowered.com/sale/steamframe

if it doesn't turn out to be absolute trash like the original steam machine
i will take the 2tb one.

 

[AJUMP23]

I watched the IGN video and the guy pronounced the "L" on Solder.

 

[pepeno]

I've been gaming at essentially this resolution with similar pancake lenses (Quest 3) for the past couple years as well, and I think it's the perfect sweet spot. When games have sufficiently well rendered content -- like the Red Matter series -- the resolution isn't a problem at all, it's perfectly crisp. The only limiting factor on current gen VR like the Q3 for me is the rendering power / GPU, not the resolution which would be a waste to optimize for in terms of price etc.

But I agree that $1200 is ridiculous, hopefully that's incorrect.

I agree with you when it comes to standalone vr games. They are rather poor looking so resolution doesn't matter. But when you play PCVR games like Cyberpunk 2077 in VR you really need that res and display quality. I recently bought PSVR2 for those OLEDs and my god the difference between LCD and OLED is like going from trash to amazing between my Pico4 and PSVR2.

If frame AT LEAST had OLEDs this would be nice option but with trash LCDs ?
Like I said, this thing needs to be cheeaaaaap otherwise it is mistake.

 

[HeisenbergFX4]

Looks like our buddies get completely caught off-guard. Again.

You have to hand it to Valve - they have engineers out here claiming theres no real plan to expand the SteamOS footprint outside of Windows, then putting out slates of HW that are infinitely more sellable than anything MS can produce.

The only silver-lining is this will finally give the Windows OS team a real competitor for them to worry about, because this slow bleeding of the PC audience can go from a trickle to heavier flows real fast. I already moved off of Windows to Bazzite myself and have no reason to go back.

Specs are a little concerning to me, would have liked to have seen a beefier option but yeah I agree with you

 

[rkofan87]

goodbye steam deck hello 2 TB steam machine

 

[Denton]

Love how all three devices look, but yeah Steam Machine's GPU is not great, really wish they went with RDNA4 and matched at least 9600 non-XT performance.

I might be tempted for Frame though, if the reviews and price are good.

 

[Dacvak]

Do we know the price of the new VR headset? I want one.

Not yet, but I'm gonna guess $999.

 

[pepeno]

Agreed. 8GB of vram made me doube take.

It's not 4k box. Not even 1440p box either. It's 1080p box with upscaling to 4k.
Also VRAM is now suuuuuuper expensive due to AI craze.
They probably wanted more but they can't do that with current hardware prices.

Not yet, but I'm gonna guess $999.

Rumored $1200

 

[ResurrectedContrarian]

This is for the Steam Deck crowd. Not the ROG Ally Xbox X or Legion Go 2 crowd.

yeah all ten of them will be very disappointed

 

[Ar¢tos]

I might sell my ps5 and go for these.
All I'm interested in is basic indie games, many don't get console releases and ps store inflated prices and lack of sales are annoying me.

Does Crunchyroll have a Linux app?

 

[Lokaum D+]

what about the price ?

 

[ReasonBeing]

Magnus device, but really, i'm talking about the actual competition being on potential growth expansion for SteamOS being a existential threat to the grip Windows has had on PC gaming

Well then I agree that it will outsell the Magnus devices as those seem to be targeted at a more niche market looking for higher performance hardware (assuming a lot here). I think this competition is going to be great for PC gaming overall.

 

[alphachino]

the steam machine is basically this concept

 

[Stafford]

 

[thicc_girls_are_teh_best]

This is your new PlayStation rival

Eh, it depends on some very critical things.

1: Pricing

2: Scale of mass volume production

3: Scale of physical retail distribution

4: Number of global markets receiving stock

5: Scale of advertising & marketing effort​

The answers to those would actually determine if this is a competitor for PlayStation at a level where a company/division like SIE takes notice. And in all five areas, Valve would need to at least hit somewhere between Microsoft Series S/X and Microsoft XBO (in terms of resources; actual quality & results you'd want to be a lot better obviously).

If they choose not to do that, then we're talking less of competition for PlayStation and more so competition for whatever the Xbox PC/console hybrid device push is going to be. But at least on that front, Valve are already winning.

 

[TrebleShot]

Yes. And modding will be difficult. For me a big part of pc gaming is being able to mod and in Linux everything is so confusing and convoluted. Not interested in this

Fsr 4 is running on steam
Deck already

 

[ShaiKhulud1989]

Man, imagine the posts here if Microsoft launched their next console as an RDNA 3 + fsr3 console with 8GB VRAM.

I... Tend to agree, actually. If this mini-PC will be around 500-600 bucks (used PS5 Pro territory) I don't see the allure and I'm a big Deck fan and actually loved Frame and contorller announcements.

HDMI 2.0? In 2025? So the multimedia side of this device is DOA (at least for my usage with LG CX), Wityh 8gb it's RAM-bounded to 1440p after FSR uipscaling, plus AMD RT solutions are limited to say the least.

Both PS5/PS5 Pro or even Series X at least can work with 4K correctly and in the case of Pro could be a solid performers. On PC side of things, now I'm more interested to see what MS will offer.

I love Steam OS, but this thing is created for the odd 1080p/1440p display bracket, it's just not there to handle 4K even in multimedia.

 

[Roni]

Ok, now I believe the Half Life 3 rumors.

 

[TintoConCasera]

So I guess it's time to sell my Valve Index lol. Wonder how much I could ask for it.

 

[KeplerL2]

K KeplerL2 Is there any reason for something like this to not use RDNA4?

Cost, this is pretty much using leftover silicon AMD can't sell anymore

 

[AndrewRyan]

You can Wishlist them by clicking the little stars under their image!

 

[coachmcguirk91]

They are not going to exist, either. Sony's big final announcement yesterday was literally them acknowledging the fact that they do, indeed, need affordable prices.

They will not develop for an almost non-existent console userbase, which will be the PS5 by 2032.

Yes, Sony has always committed to selling its consoles for, at least, 10 years. The PS4 was only discontinued early last year.

They want as long as it's possible. You will eventually run into situations like Battlefield 6.

Call of Duty is still on last-gen consoles. Why is that? The jump between hardware from this gen to next is going to be much smaller, while being more expensive. Graphics as a whole have very clearly stagnated. It feels like this generation has just started. There is a zero percent chance that the cross-gen period won't be much longer than previous generations. Insane to think otherwise

 

[SenkiDala]

Pc gaming ? Without the Windows shit ? I'm in

 

[zeroluck]

AMD can't be bothered to make a SOC for the the Steam machine.

 

[rkofan87]

Weaker than a Base PS5?

If this isn't $350-$400 I see no point.

good enough for me I'm only in it for the point and click and classic Fps stuff that's not on console.

 

[SNG32]

8 gb vram gpu and a cpu with six cores? Yea we skipping this.

 

[Ozriel]

Rumored $1200

Not possible. They told UploadVR that the Frame would be sold for cheaper than the $1000 Valve Index full kit.

 

[IDKFA]

It's not 4k box. Not even 1440p box either. It's 1080p box with upscaling to 4k.
Also VRAM is now suuuuuuper expensive due to AI craze.
They probably wanted more but they can't do that with current hardware prices.


Rumored $1200

Yeah, I think if they want to make this affordable then they had to go lighter on the specs.

I'm sold on it. The VR headset also looks cool, but it costs to much for me to justify a purchase (unless HL3 is a VR exclusive )

 

[Robot Carnival]

Linus got a video on the Frame and will probably have videos on the rest of the products soon.

 

[Magic Carpet]

TMR sticks on the controller! Yay!
I'm curious about that grip control. Might be useful.

 

[Parazels]

For those complaining about the specs - remember that it could be an entry level console with a more powerful version coming later.

 

[yogaflame]

 

[pepeno]

So I guess it's time to sell my Valve Index lol. Wonder how much I could ask for it.

It's certainly upgrade over Index. Just not upgrade over standard VR hardware these days.

Maybe I am too critical about it. I bought my Pico4 3 years ago mainly for PCVR but because it has almost stock android you basically can play all android games on it, includign emulaotors and so on. With it being essentially PC i would assume it will live similar life but better since Pico4 is niche VR headset while this is mainstream one.

Also the whole front is detachable. Maybe they will later include Frame OLED module sold separately or something down the line with better res.

 

[Hot5pur]

Monochrome passthrough?
LCD?

Yeah I guess in this economy selling something more advanced is tough. I can't see it competing with Quest 3 unless that foveated rendering is some game changer

 

[pepeno]

Not possible. They told UploadVR that the Frame would be sold for cheaper than the $1000 Valve Index full kit.

Then it makes some sense but even at $899 it is tough sell. It needs to be like $599 to be fire. $499 would be a steal.

Yeah I guess in this economy selling something more advanced is tough. I can't see it competing with Quest 3 unless that foveated rendering is some game changer

From what i have seen there is no talk about fovated rendering. only fovated streaming. I really really really really really hope Valve will make fovated rendering mendatory for SteamVR so that all VR games support it or make it part of SteamOS itself.

 

[diffusionx]

AMD can't be bothered to make a SOC for the the Steam machine.

More like Valve doesn't want to pay them to make one.

 

[rkofan87]

I know this is not really possible.
I want gog to work on this thing without having to jump through hoops.

 

[Kacho]

"Yeah, I think from the VRAM side of things, it's essentially that PC gaming is a lot lot larger than our particular focus. And a huge amount of games that don't really touch VRAM are actually getting a lot of use within the PC ecosystem."

38:47

 

[TintoConCasera]

Linus got a video on the Frame and will probably have videos on the rest of the products soon.

TLDW: Lightweight, wireless with no latency and great visual quality?

 

[kevboard]

For those complaining about the specs - remember that it could be an entry level console with a more powerful version coming later.

the specs are fine if this is indeed entry level. like if this is 300€ I will instantly buy it.
but I have this weird feeling that it will be priced above 500€, at which point it's not worth the price

 

[Parazels]

This is humiliating for Sony, not only do they give Valve all of their games, while Valve gives them none of their own games, now Valve are making their own console lite hardware as well. If Sony continues to port their games to Steam now they must be braindead. Either stop PC ports now or only release it on a PS storefront and launcher on PC.

Valve is no less a competitor to them than Nintendo, so porting stuff to steam makes about as much sense as porting it to the Nintendo eshop.

I can't believe that Sony's agents didn't know about the Steam Machine.