Steam Frame, Steam controller and Steam Machine Revealed

For those interested, UploadVR (the definitive source for real VR centric journalism) is streaming a live show around the Frame announcement. They are skeptical about a LCD driven device at a presumably $700-$900 device, but are gushing over the comfort. Overall, cautiously excited.

They mention that there is a high bandwidth expansion slot near the nose opening that could be utilized for color passthrough (MR), face tracking, or other attachments.

Edit: the headset also has two WiFi antenna's. One dedicated to your home Wi-Fi for internet, and the other dedicated to connect to the dongle. This is a fantastic solution to build a wireless PCVR headset with connection performance that rivals a wired connection. Love this move

 
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Probably only a matter of time before Valve officially deploy SteamOS for desktop.

If so, I think that's actually the biggest news here, honestly. It's what many have been asking for, and it's probably one of the things Microsoft was hoping wouldn't happen or at least would be way further down the line. Basically if you want better performance than Windows for PC gaming but think the specs in a Steam Machine are too low, there's nothing stopping you from getting that better performance (SteamOS) in whatever spec build you want it to run on.

So, you effectively have zero excuse to still stick with Windows for PC gaming outside of arguably Game Pass and a very small number of games without Linux versions due to anti-cheat (which is more a reflection of the dev teams not wanting to implement a form themselves, as other games have system-level anticheat on Linux distros). Even in those cases, I can see many still installing something like SteamOS for dual-booting alongside Windows.

The reason I say it's one of the things Microsoft didn't want to see happen, is because any amount of usage a user has in SteamOS means less Windows usage, meaning less time for MS to push their AI services and ads onto said person. Users can sidestep those avenues for the majority of their PC usage now if they mainly play the 99% of modern games compatible on Windows & SteamOS, and/or productivity software usage of the same.
 
Rob_27 said:
So I presume I could somehow connect my Quest 3 to this GabeCube. But also my PSVR2. But would they be any better than the Frame......
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I imagine VR capability will be somewhat hampered by the AMD GPU and VRAM. Though it will certainly work as an entry level device if SteamOS can or will support VR.
 
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hououinkyouma00 said:
I was curious so I went through the specs, and they had the dimensions of the controller, so I compared it to other controllers and was pleasantly surprised.


Steam Controller: 111mm x 159mm x 57mm 292g
DualSense: 106mm x 160mm x 66mm 280g
Xbox One: 101.9mm x 152.9mm x 61mm 280g

Now I based this off of this website LINK so maybe it's wrong but it's only 5mm taller so the controller is pretty comparable to the DualSense size wise.
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It's even heavier than the DualSense? I was afraid this thing would be too light. Great news. Can't wait to hear more details. 2026 is looking like a great year for gaming.
 
I'm sold.
One of the worse decisions I made this year was to sell my Steam Deck OLED and buy a Switch 2. I didn't want, or need to have 2x handhelds and wanted to play some Nintendo exclusives but still had my PC for everything Steam related.
Currently, I have a HDMI cable running from my study (PC) to the living room to play my PC on the big screen - while this works, it's a bit of a hassle with changing monitor resolutions/screens and using virtualhere to get my controller working anytime I switch between rooms (first world problems).
I still love my XSX, but with all Xbox published games now day and date and PlayStation pretty close to this too, it's perfect timing to go all in on a primary PC/Steam setup.

Thinking I'll sell my Switch 2, (re)buy a Steam Deck OLED for handheld and get myself a Steam Machine for the living room. While I still have Game Pass, it expires in March 2026 and not sure I'll renew with the higher prices. My Steam library keeps growing and almost every quarterly sale I'm adding to it with big discounts.

I'll still keep my XSX for my physical original Xbox and 360 backwards compatible games, but mostly so I can still play GTA 6 day one :D ...and when it comes to Nintendo games, back to sailing the high seas with emulation - fuck them, I'm still salty af that my $15 Amazon portable dock no longer works after the recent update lol.
 
New hardware is always exciting.

That 8GB VRAM on the Steam Machine is a bit of a questionable choice though. I guess we'll see how they'll price it. Might be a good little budget PC and gaming machine for the masses.
 
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salva said:
I'm sold.
One of the worse decisions I made this year was to sell my Steam Deck OLED and buy a Switch 2. I didn't want, or need to have 2x handhelds and wanted to play some Nintendo exclusives but still had my PC for everything Steam related.
Currently, I have a HDMI cable running from my study (PC) to the living room to play my PC on the big screen - while this works, it's a bit of a hassle with changing monitor resolutions/screens and using virtualhere to get my controller working anytime I switch between rooms (first world problems).
I still love my XSX, but with all Xbox published games now day and date and PlayStation pretty close to this too, it's perfect timing to go all in on a primary PC/Steam setup.

Thinking I'll sell my Switch 2, (re)buy a Steam Deck OLED for handheld and get myself a Steam Machine for the living room. While I still have Game Pass, it expires in March 2026 and not sure I'll renew with the higher prices. My Steam library keeps growing and almost every quarterly sale I'm adding to it with big discounts.

I'll still keep my XSX for my physical original Xbox and 360 backwards compatible games, but mostly so I can still play GTA 6 day one :D ...and when it comes to Nintendo games, back to sailing the high seas with emulation - fuck them, I'm still salty af that my $15 Amazon portable dock no longer works after the recent update lol.
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Bro you bought a $15 Amazon-branded portable dock and expected it to work for longer than two weeks?
 
Topher said:
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michael-jordan-haha.gif
 
Controller looks like what I've wanted since the deck reveal for PC controllers.

Frame is abit questionable, but I appreciate x86 to arm approach they have. Headset looks super small, eye tracking, and some nice controllers. Plus it'll come with a decent strap out of the box. Not like passthrough is that important for me. If it's 350 or 400 I'll bite.

Steam machine no thanks lmfao
 
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Catphish said:
Frame has the same resolution as my 5-yr-old Reverb G2.

Disappointing. :(
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I understand that sentiment, but additional resolution would be lost on most customers due to the high performance requirements to render at such resolutions. There is a reason that super high resolution HMD displays are typically reserved for niche devices.
 
64gigabyteram said:
Controller looks like what I've wanted since the deck reveal for PC controllers.

Frame is questionable, but I appreciate x86 to arm approach they have. Headset looks super small, eye tracking, and some nice controllers. Plus it'll come with a decent strap out of the box. Not like passthrough is that important for me. If it's 350 or 400 I'll bite

Steam machine no thanks lmfao
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honestly, I fear the price for the Steam Frame will be way higher than that. I assume 700€ minimum.
350€ would be an absolute steal.
 
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kevboard said:
honestly, I fear the price for the Steam Frame will be way higher than that. I assume 700€ minimum.
350€ would be an absolute steal.
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They would be retarded to charge more than the quest 3 price for this thing. It's basically a side grade which is a bit upsetting considering the 2 year gap they had.

Like I said, 450 max or make like MJ and beat it
 
SneakersSO said:
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
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Hold on.

You're claiming that this RDNA 3 device with 8GB VRAM and lower compute power than a Series X, will best a custom Xbox device with Zen 6, RDNA 5, a large amount of GDDR7 memory, and access to all Windows games including online games and AAA games?

Oh, and this Steam machine is projected to be quite expensive.
 
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hououinkyouma00 said:
You mean VRAM? It has 16GB of DDR5.


Minimalist gang rise up. This would be a great partner to your Steam Deck dude!
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I sold my Steam Deck :messenger_grimmacing_

Miss it though. There's only a few games I used it for, but it was great. Now I'm just thinking I can stick a Steam Machine under my living room TV instead to get that fix.
 
Codes 208 said:
Woah woah woah, the steam frame is a stand-alone vr headset?

Does meta finally have real competition?

Color me interested
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The question about competition will be decided by game developers. At this point, much of the SteamVR library won't run well in standalone mode. Valve told journalists that they couldn't show off Alyx running in standalone mode due to poor performance, and Alyx is an incredibly optimized game. One can extrapolate from there.

Meta has invested literally 100's of millions into building the library that they currently have through incentives and first party development. I have noticed an uptick in Steam releases of games developed first and foremost for Quest, so hopefully that continues. Of course, if the customers are there, devs will follow. Hopefully it sells well.
 
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As a hardcore PlayStation user, Sony really has to impress me with the PS6 or I'm jumping ship to this.

-I've had enough of their stupid ass online fee that they had the balls to jack up the price on. Give me a break with this.

-if they continue to use those crappy sticks in the controllers. If they do, that means they know the controller will eventually drift, and they are ok with it. They want people to buy new controllers.

Anyways, that's still a few years away. But I'm watching this new steam machine with lots of interest.
 
Did not expect an actual console from Steam so this came out of nowhere and also seems very interesting. No interest in VR but if it's a decent amount better than my current near decade old PC while not being too expensive than I'll get one on a few conditions.

1. This needs to allow me to freely mod or download mods for Warcraft Reforged, Elder Scrolls, Fallout games.

2. This needs to be allow me to play WoW/Blizzard games.

Without these two features than it'll be a deal breaker so hope both of these are in.
 
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thicc_girls_are_teh_best said:
Probably only a matter of time before Valve officially deploy SteamOS for desktop.

If so, I think that's actually the biggest news here, honestly. It's what many have been asking for, and it's probably one of the things Microsoft was hoping wouldn't happen or at least would be way further down the line. Basically if you want better performance than Windows for PC gaming but think the specs in a Steam Machine are too low, there's nothing stopping you from getting that better performance (SteamOS) in whatever spec build you want it to run on.

So, you effectively have zero excuse to still stick with Windows for PC gaming outside of arguably Game Pass and a very small number of games without Linux versions due to anti-cheat (which is more a reflection of the dev teams not wanting to implement a form themselves, as other games have system-level anticheat on Linux distros). Even in those cases, I can see many still installing something like SteamOS for dual-booting alongside Windows.

The reason I say it's one of the things Microsoft didn't want to see happen, is because any amount of usage a user has in SteamOS means less Windows usage, meaning less time for MS to push their AI services and ads onto said person. Users can sidestep those avenues for the majority of their PC usage now if they mainly play the 99% of modern games compatible on Windows & SteamOS, and/or productivity software usage of the same.
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Getting a little too ahead here. What Microsoft really does not want to happen is mainstream OEMs selling PCs with SteamOS pre-installed at a lower price than their Windows counterparts. The average person doesn't want any part of DIY installing an OS and will just stick with whatever is pre-installed.
 
ReasonBeing said:
I understand that sentiment, but additional resolution would be lost on most customers due to the high performance requirements to render at such resolutions. There is a reason that super high resolution HMD displays are typically reserved for niche devices.
Click to expand...
Something tells me they'll be charging super high resolution HMD prices for it regardless.
 
Fuck yes. I am so excited in this.

I think if Valve pulls this off well, I can see these Steam Machines becoming my living room console instead. It's been PlayStation for decades, but Sony is putting all its games on PC now, and third party PS exclusives are all guaranteed at least a PC version, so I don't miss anything at all by doing this.

I am really looking forward to the price reveal. Hope it is priced as well as Steam Deck was.
 
Physiognomonics said:
It's going to be awkward when this machine will play 99% of Playstation games + all Steam games.
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Unless they fix their anti cheat issues the last part of the statement isn't true.

Kacho said:
PC + Steam Deck + Steam Box is gonna be dope

So glad I won't have to dock my Deck anymore.
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One thing that will be really nice is the SD hot swap.

Being able to hot swap my SD with Emudeck + ISOs back and forth would be awesome.
 
ResurrectedContrarian said:
I'm a bit torn on that... the hardware itself looks nicer than we'll get from Meta, when it comes to little details. Much better controllers (my Quest 3 sticks are already drifting too now, after I dealt with replacing them back on Quest 2; the sticks and buttons are also just barely acceptable on Quest in general), nicer streaming from PC due to the custom stick, etc.

But indeed it would be hard to give up the Meta ecosystem. Do we really think they'll ever port Batman Arkham Shadow? Seems highly unlikely since it was funded by Meta, and that goes for a lot of other must-have VR titles.

If I stay in the Meta world and get a future Quest 4, I'll still have all those games plus can still connect to a PC for all the Steam VR games, so I lose nothing.


I agree that Q3 with a nice battery-added strap (I use Bobo too, it's great; with 2 batteries on a charging base so I can hot swap and never run out of power) is already a pretty perfect experience. Except the horrible controllers, I'd probably pay to just replace them with Steam Frame ones but of course that won't be possible.
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The little details and fit & finish niceties matter little when the device's primary component and what you spend 100% of your time interfacing with is a 100 nit global lit 2K LCD panel with image quality straight out of 2006, literally.
 
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I'm super stoked and this reminds me of when I was lttp on the day of the steamdeck reveal. I am set for pc hardware and vr, but still this is amazing news. I'm getting that controller day one!!!!

But... But....

8gb vram? Fuuuuuuck. This and 8gb cards are going to be selling for years.
 
ResurrectedContrarian said:
I agree that Q3 with a nice battery-added strap (I use Bobo too, it's great; with 2 batteries on a charging base so I can hot swap and never run out of power) is already a pretty perfect experience. Except the horrible controllers, I'd probably pay to just replace them with Steam Frame ones but of course that won't be possible.
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I have the same. 3 batteries in total (thanks to Amazon for acknowledging their mistake), the replacement face plates, straps, wireless charger for the unit and controllers, and a case. I also have a Prism XR dedicated router for just VR. Worth every penny for Virtual Desktop.
 
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Currently watching the GiantBomb video and I'm incredibly impressed by the Controller and Frame. 100% buying the controller as soon as it's available. The Frame I'll probably hold off on for a bit strictly because I'll have to budget around it and will want prescription inserts because no VR headset feels good to wear with glasses (for me obviously).

The Machine was never going to appeal to me as someone with high end PC hardware already. I have a coworker who will be buying it (unless it's priced too high) as he's a PC gamer but can't upgrade very often and is still using an older "gaming" laptop.
 
I love seeing genuine hardware for running games created by the manufacturers themselves. In them, you can see the technological, design, forward-thinking, and business vision of a company, and there are always interesting details.

Then there's the question of the product's value for money, the type of user it's aimed at... I'm sure there will be users who will see this Valve Machine as a product perfectly suited to their needs.

Personally, my doubts lie in the specs (quite modest), and the potential for technical support (like game optimization). The controller also raises some questions for me at first glance (I'd need to try it to have a fair opinion).

All in all, I welcome new and greater options for playing video games. Everyone is different and has different needs, so more variety is always better.

It will be interesting to see how it's received.
 
64gigabyteram said:
They would be retarded to charge more than the quest 3 price for this thing. It's basically a side grade which is a bit upsetting considering the 2 year gap they had.

Like I said, 450 max or make like MJ and beat it
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it seems their sensors are far better than other inside-out headsets (Linus is a stickler when it comes to that and he said it felt almost like lighthouse tracking in the LTT video) and their screens seem pretty high end as well.

so I could see this being sold as a premium product.
 
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ssringo said:
Currently watching the GiantBomb video and I'm incredibly impressed by the Controller and Frame. 100% buying the controller as soon as it's available. The Frame I'll probably hold off on for a bit strictly because I'll have to budget around it and will want prescription inserts because no VR headset feels good to wear with glasses (for me obviously).

The Machine was never going to appeal to me as someone with high end PC hardware already. I have a coworker who will be buying it (unless it's priced too high) as he's a PC gamer but can't upgrade very often and is still using an older "gaming" laptop.
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Yeah all in for the controller. Capactive touch on analogue to gyro is a game changer for aiming. Steam Frame will have to see on reviews and the price.
 
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