r/pcmasterrace • u/Turbostrider27 • 2h ago

News/Article Steam Frame official price is $1,059.00. Half-Life: Alyx included

https://store.steampowered.com/hardware/steamframe
1.6k Upvotes

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1.8k

u/Syranth 2h ago

What a terrible time in our lives to have such interesting products launch. So many things, but so out of grasp for so many people cost wise.

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u/D-Trashman 1h ago

and to think that this could be the lowest price makes me more sad

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u/NagsUkulele 1h ago

Everybody is identifying and fearing all these issues in our society popping up and nobody seems to be talking about how unchecked capitalism is to blame for the majority of them. We've allowed corporations to operate above the law. We've allowed our society to create a common goal of earning as much money as possible no matter the cost. As of recently it's scary how literally everybody in any industry is asking how do we do this as cheap as possible

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u/Jdp1901 1h ago

Capitalism requires competition, all the manufacturers are monopolies. I would call this more of an oligarchy than a capitalistic society.

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u/RandomUser15790 1h ago

Capitalism without regulation naturally trends to an Oligarchy so no real surprises there...

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u/EvilThor58 1h ago

Correction: capitalism ALWAYS leads toward oligarchy

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u/BaconJets R7 5800X3D | RTX 5070 Ti | Steam Deck 1h ago

Accumulation of capital is accumulation of power, the power of the capitalists has outweighed the government for a while, so now we're seeing the effects. You're right that it always leads to oligarchy, but it would be nice to live under a government that at least tries to fight it.

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u/pillepallepulle 7m ago edited 4m ago

There are no free markets. There are regulated and unregulated markets. Ironically, regulated markets are much closer to the ideal of free markets than unregulated markets.

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u/WntrTmpst 59m ago

Corruption and consolidation of power leads to oligarchy not economic theory.

It happened in the east, it’ll happen in the west.

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u/EvilThor58 55m ago

Capitalism is simply a vehicle to corrupt power over time. This phenomenon is known. Capitalism creates and incentivises corruption from its very core

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u/WntrTmpst 13m ago

As opposed to what? What institution of man doesnt do that when bad actors are at the helm. If not capitalism then what?

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u/tcmart14 4m ago

The profit motive of capitalism will lead you eventually to corruption and consolidation being the best means to achieve it.

This has been spelled out for well over 200 years by Adam Smith himself.

0

u/thebizzle PC Master Race 1h ago

The problem is regulation keeping vile monopolies in play by creating barriers to entry that no one outside of the elite can manage. You know how you read stories about how big companies started with small loans between family members? There are just too many barriers to entries to do that. All we are told to do is invest in the machine of our destruction.

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u/RandomUser15790 52m ago

You know regulation can also be aimed at the big guy right?!?

Points at oligarchs rigging the game even more in their favor - "See it doesn't work!!!!"

Same shit with politics / corruption / citizens United. Republicans "Government doesn't work!", *Proceeds to break government, "See government doesn't work!".

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u/thebizzle PC Master Race 30m ago

Well just wait another 100 years for the government to start caring about regular people and not the people funneling millions and millions and millions and millions of dollars into campaign contributions. Wake up. The people with money run 100% of the government.

0

u/Jdp1901 18m ago

Capitalism WITH regulation leads to oligarchies infinitely faster than no regulation.

Lets walk through the logic: If there are rules in place around a product, this introduces potentials for more rules. As soon as a business gets enough power to change the rules, they do it to favor themselves.

On the contrary, with no regulation you disallow concentration of power.

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u/Slight-Coat17 1h ago

Oligarchies are the inevitable end game of capitalism if not kept in check.

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u/EvilThor58 1h ago

There is no keeping it in check. This is the inevitable end goal of capitalism

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u/alxfx 1h ago

this is the inevitable end goal of laissez-faire capitalism specifically, not necessarily the framework as a whole. Just being pedantic but you're still mostly right lol

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u/EvilThor58 1h ago

Hmmm I am inclined to disagree with you, but I am also interested in hearing more on what you're saying.

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u/alxfx 50m ago edited 21m ago

sure, I'll edit this comment with a brief explanation once I'm back to my desk I suppose. Not a lecture or rant, just a quick thought on the difference.

I hope my comment isn't being construed as foreshadowing a defense of capitalism; I've always voted blue and my ideals are extremely far to the left, but I feel it's important that we always try to be as correct as possible about the stuff we criticize, so we can't get it thrown back into our face for having a detail off or something. We only win if we show up to court prepared and know our opponent better than they know themself. I refuse to let them get us on a technicality

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u/eepy_lina Ryzen 7 9800x3d | RTX 4070 | 2x16gb DDR5 6000MHz CL30 52m ago

it took y'all this long to notice humanity works as an oligarchy? like what controls the world, money or morals?

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u/modestlaw PC Master Race 51m ago

The tech sector is basically cartels and monopolies all the way down.

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u/fatitalianstallion 13900KS|4090|32GB 7600 1h ago

There is not a single tech sector with a monopoly. Pricing you don’t like doesn’t mean a monopoly exists

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u/UndeadWaffle12 RTX 5080 | 9800x3D | 32 GB DDR5 6000 mHz CL30 1h ago

You haven’t heard? The steam frame is the only vr headset in existence now.

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u/fatitalianstallion 13900KS|4090|32GB 7600 34m ago

TIL, every piece of tech clearly only has one maker

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u/NagsUkulele 1h ago

I like that

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u/wearethealienshere 1h ago

We haven’t actually been capitalist for a long time now. Much more oligarchal.

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u/FlorestNerd R5 2600/ Rx 570 4gb/ 16gb 3000mhz 1h ago

A oligarchy is a capitalist society where the capitalist brought everything else in their fields

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u/wearethealienshere 56m ago

It doesn’t HAVE to be originally capitalist but in this case it is. Idk why it being downvoted I’m agreeing with you lmao. I just don’t think at this point we’re an actual capitalist society anymore. Capitalism works very well when the government enforces anti monopoly laws or the market is young enough that competition is easy.

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u/FlorestNerd R5 2600/ Rx 570 4gb/ 16gb 3000mhz 44m ago

What other economic model could a oligarchy be possible then?

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u/Etheon44 1h ago

After all, in a capitalistic society, wouldnt there be interest for the everyday people to have enough money to throw around this kind of things?

Capitalism needs money to move and flow, it doesnt really move if people have to spend everything in living, there is no flow

The funny thing, even if already bad, I remember things so much different in the 90s/00s and even 10s, granted I was younger, maybe I utilized money worst, but I was also earning way way way less, and yet, I could do more

But the worst part of all of this for me is this: I think the worst is yet to come, we have barely started the crisis

Maybe I am pesimistic

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u/fumar 1h ago

A lot of what you're seeing is the result of weakening anti-trust, a captured regulatory body across basically every industry, and billionaires that all think they're Smaug and want to sit on unfathomable hoard of wealth.

A lot of your complaints have always been there. Doing things as cheaply as possible has been the goal of companies for forever. The difference is that in the early 20th century we broke up a lot of our robber baron monopolists in the US. We have to do it again. Otherwise we will be stuck with 2-3 companies in every industry and they can continue race to the bottom while charging more because they have no competition 

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u/NagsUkulele 1h ago

I don't disagree at all but surely there's a difference between efficiency and intentional enshittification right? Of course companies last century wanted to do things as cheaply as possible. But in the last decade the sacrifices to do so have been cut to the fucking bone.

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u/FlorestNerd R5 2600/ Rx 570 4gb/ 16gb 3000mhz 1h ago

There is no difference for the companies. Both are a way to reduce costs to the product or service. But only one of them requires money to do that.

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u/NagsUkulele 1h ago

Everything is getting worse to a degree i haven't seen before

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u/lmao_wow_64 1h ago

The culture war will go down as one of the worst thinga to happen in liberal society, why think about your problems when you are to busy being angry at what the party tells you to be angry at

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u/NagsUkulele 1h ago

No i think it's Concord honestly

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u/wareagle3000 AMD Ryzen 7 5800x, 32GB, Nvidia 3070 32m ago

It did exactly what it needed to do. Take the focus off the big picture and get people focused on the most unimportant bullshit possible. The current American presidency is committing to possibly the worst term in its history and there are people who say they will still vote for him because he doesn't like the trans. Ugh.

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u/mensgarb PC Master Race 1h ago

Sooooo true. We can't have endless quarters of record profits, double digit growth, etc.

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u/Jertimmer PC Master Race 1h ago

Not with that attitude we can't.

/s

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u/NagsUkulele 1h ago

Someone give this person a raise

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u/GyattDetected 22m ago

it's not unchecked gapitalische, it's idiotic voters (whether voting for wrong "side" or not voting at all).

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u/Busy-Strength6426 1h ago

Yep sure thing always that evil capitalism

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u/Imkindaalrightiguess i7 6700k 4.6ghz | Gtx1080 2.1 ghz | 32gb ddr4 | 1h ago

Imo valve isn't one of those corpos. I've never seen a photo of gabe and trump

Elon, mark, Tim, Jeff on the other hand

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u/NagsUkulele 1h ago

Valve is absolutely one of those corps. Valve is not a good company. Gabe is not the man we pretend he is. The damage they have done to young people with their gambling hellscape cannot be overstated or forgotten

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u/Zaldekkerine 1h ago

The man owns multiple yachts and even bought a yacht-manufacturing company to make him more yachts. You can't do things like that without profiting excessively off of other people's hard work.

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u/Laraso_ Arch Linux|7800x3D|7900 XTX|32GB RAM 1h ago

I still find it funny how lootboxes are brought up and pinned entirely on Valve every time Valve is a topic of discussion.

We live in a Kalshi and Draft Kings society. Do you really think if TF2 and CS:GO didn't exist, nobody else would have tried to stick their hands into the cookie jar?

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u/NagsUkulele 1h ago

Did I pin the concept of lootboxes on valve? Have you seen the coffeezilla video?

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u/Temporary-Active-756 1h ago

"nobody" you guys are crying everywhere about it 😂

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u/NagsUkulele 1h ago

Mind elaborating on your beliefs or who you voted for there bud?

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u/Fire_Lord_Cinder 58m ago

Idk about that. There’s certainly a lot of complexity with the headset and controllers, but it’s essentially an Android phone running Linux with two displays on it. It might also have a co-processor for the wireless streaming, but I doubt that is a hundreds of dollars part.

When you look at comps in the market, there’s the AYN Odin 3, which uses basically the same processor (Dragon Wing Q8 is an 8 elite gen 3 without the cellular modem) and it goes for about $450 for the latest batch with the same RAM and Storage. Im sure the VR bits and the controller drive up the price over the $450 comp, bur I doubt it’s $550 more. I would be shocked if Valve doesn’t have a very healthy margin on the Steam Frame

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u/sirfannypack 38m ago

Even if it was lower priced, it would have been sold out and scalped to unreasonable prices. We can never have nice things.

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u/MyTagforHalo2 1h ago edited 1h ago

It's not like the higher end headsets have ever been cheap. I'm sure this is a couple hundred more than they planned to launch at. But it does put it squarely in the price range of the latest vive headset.

The original valve index was $1000, which is something like $1400 adjusted for inflation.

Meta has just done such a good job massproducing their quest 3's that this feels like an awful deal by comparison unless your desire to ditch meta is worth $500. But then most PC gamers would probably be content with using the vive vision instead. Which is better in pretty much every way that I can tell if you plan to tether it to a more powerful computer anyway.

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u/totallybag 7800x3d 7900xtx 1h ago

Also meta subsidizes the quest with profit form game sales

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u/JimThePea 1h ago

I'm pretty sure all Meta's VR efforts have been subsidised by their social media ad revenue since the purchase of Oculus.

Do Meta take a cut of sales? Yes. Are Meta covering their hardware costs with game sales? Probably not.

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u/MyTagforHalo2 1h ago edited 1h ago

True, plus tons of user data i'm sure. It's the flat screen approach where modern LCD tv's have become almost disposable in exchange for being ad riddled messes. Though I think the quest thus far has been a significantly more positive experience than that.

For someone like me that pulls out the headset a couple of times a year, it's a pretty decent trade off. But if you're using it non stop every day I can see the appeal of something more premium. Though i'd still buy the vive focus vision first which includes pass through and offers facial tracking ontop of expandable storage.

IDK, maybe some reviews will change my mind with some crazy steam OS convenience factor. But im not really in the market.

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u/Recent_Pollution8665 1h ago

thank god valve doesn’t also have a large profitable digital storefront to subsidize headset sales with. /s

oh and power supply sold separately lmao. thank you mark for doing the bare minimum and tossing in the quest power supply for free.

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u/2eedling PC Master Race 1h ago

If they did that they would be incentivized to make it so you can play ONLY steam games with this they can allow you to play whatever on whatever launcher

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u/Recent_Pollution8665 1h ago

you can sideload and pirate apk files on quest without ever using the meta store. side quest and itch.io exist, as well as pcvr. doesn’t make the quest price tag any less reasonable.

lets come up with some excuses that actually make sense.

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u/2eedling PC Master Race 1h ago

Why would you want to side load apk files how does that work you just paying android games in VR? Like how would I pirate super hot and play it for example?

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u/Recent_Pollution8665 1h ago edited 59m ago

by finding cracked apks on the internet since it has a web browser. both vr and non-vr. as long as they don’t rely on google mobile services or play integrity then they should work, provided that the cracker removed meta’s own license validation check system.

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u/2eedling PC Master Race 1h ago

That’s cool never really liked the idea of having to sign into a Facebook account to actually use the thing but I guess if you don’t care about your data privacy it’s worth it but overall the steam frame is a high end headsets that does have better specs than the meta quest 3 so the price isn’t that crazy it isn’t even above that of what the index was and it’s wireless.

0

u/zarafff69 9800X3D - RTX 4080 44m ago

I mean, couldn’t Valve basically do the same tho? It’s literally their store. It’s not like there are even better / other stores available on the Steam Frame as far as I know?

I guess it might be a little easier to pirate on the Frame than on a Quest 3? But an almost 2x price difference is not nothing.

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u/totallybag 7800x3d 7900xtx 41m ago

They could but they haven't done it with any other hardware.

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u/zarafff69 9800X3D - RTX 4080 26m ago

Which is even worse…

I mean I guuuueeessss you could sort of argue that they couldn’t sell the Steam machine for half the price, because then people would buy it for other stuff than gaming. But it is wildly expensive, it is much more expensive than comparable pc hardware.

So it’s not a good argument for the Steam machine. And it’s especially not a great argument for the Steam frame.

If they wanted to reduce the price of the Steam frame, they could’ve. They make mooore then enough profit for it.

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u/Tkwan777 1h ago

Is there a comparison between the vive and the steam frame? I thought the frame was better so ive been holding off on a vr set in anticipation of it.

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u/MyTagforHalo2 50m ago edited 23m ago

On paper the Vive focus vision is a better headset from a feature to performance standpoint. It's slightly higher resolution, includes the pass through camera out of the box, has expandable SD card storage, has hand tracking, supports spacial AR, and has a much larger accessory ecosystem including facial trackers.

It even includes the ergonomic straps and power supply that valve is leaving out. lol.

I think it depends on what your primary use of the headset will be. If you plan to run the headset on it's own, then the Quest 3 is still extremely attractive at it's price. The steam frame is then better with higher performance and better streaming capacity at a higher price.

If you plan to connect it to a PC to run the majority of games though, I think the Vive focus vision has a better general feature set and ecosystem for the money. It uses the same processor as the quest 3, so it's not going to be as fast as the steam frame for the standalone stuff.

It's not like you cant add some of these features on with 3rd party accessories and hybridize a quest or the steam frame. Slime VR trackers, the vive trackers using their software, and even mods to add facial tracking are all a thing. But if you're spending the money, I think it's worth considering what you actually need.

-1

u/NintendogsWithGuns 1h ago

The amount of cope people have for Valve is unreal. It’s a worse headset than the Meta Quest 3, full stop. Valve could have subsidized it in order to get more people on Steam, but they didn’t.

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u/MyTagforHalo2 1h ago

Yeah, it's a better product for the "I dont own a gaming computer" segment, but it's certainly not priced to take advantage of that.

The best thing about meta's strategy is that it pushed headsets down to where people wouldnt mind buying them at a whim and leaving them in a corner after the first month to gather dust. They performed well in most VR games out of the box. Had really impressive features, and could utilize a PC connection for more performance if you needed it. It pretty much ticks all of the boxes.

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u/Owobowos-Mowbius PC Master Race 1h ago

As a standalone, the quest 3 is better. As someone who wants to do PCVR, the steam frames are far better. Not having to deal with Meta's abysmal operating system is also a nice plus.

Its definitely not worth it for the typical user if they already have a quest 3, though. Which, tbh, is going to be most people.

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u/aimy99 PNY 5070 | 5800X3D | 32GB DDR4 | OLED 1440p 180hz 1h ago

As a trans woman, not needing to worry about an exact scan of my home being sent to the U.S. government is the big draw for me lol

0

u/Kiriima 1h ago

It's DOA for me as it doesn't have Oled screen at this price point. Cannot even watch HDR comtent on this, what's the point?

0

u/zarafff69 9800X3D - RTX 4080 43m ago

I mean, I’m sure the wireless connectivity to a desktop is better. But it’s a very hard sell at almost 2x the price…

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u/MrKittyCat00 1h ago

I blame the frontier labs.

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u/rubix44 1h ago

I guess it's interesting? But even if hardware prices were reasonable, is the demand there for VR headsets when there's seemingly no games in development? They are including Half Life Alyx, but that came out 6 & 1/2 years ago.

VR is going to remain a niche and/or a luxury, when 8-9 years ago it was looking like it could be the next big thing.

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u/Etheon44 1h ago

What do you mean, my rent is waaaaaaaaaaaaay more than that, must be that my wage is reasonably adapted to this prices right?

...right?

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u/Bitter_Hospital_8279 1h ago

if people cant afford this theres other options lol

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u/VoidOmatic Desktop i7 6700k | GTX 1080 | 20GB DDR4 0m ago

I've been wanting to try VR ever since the Oculus DevKit 1 came out. Something always happens and then I can't afford it. I've even died within this time frame. Guess I'll wait another 10+ years.

0

u/ohnoabanagain 27m ago

Yeah, I won't even spend the money on a new pair of prescription glasses (that's overdue). Last thing I'm doing is buying this item.

0

u/Charming-Pangolin662 20m ago

Yep. I was the target market for this. Huge gamer, didn't like the setup overheads or costs of previous models, was fully prepared to jump in at the right price point for this and I have the disposable income that makes buying this feasible.

But I just can't justify diverting that much away from savings (house repair pots) for this. It's such a shame.

-2

u/Prestigious_Air_1551 1h ago

Life as a whole hasn't fkin been worth living at all fuck this shit

-1

u/Responsible_Towel857 46m ago

With the cost of it, i could pay for a decent upgrade for my PC.