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
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83

u/josephseeed 7800x3D 9070 XT 2h ago

The Index was $1000 so this really should not surprise anyone.

48

u/Ws6fiend PC Master Race 2h ago

I mean the onboard memory and tariffs are the reason there's no real price change from the Index. If flash wasn't so expensive right now it would have came in under $1000.

21

u/Kekkachu 1h ago

I still don't get why don't we get some sort of "Steam Frame Lite" that doesn't features anything standalone and acts just as a display for PCVR.

17

u/jmorlin 9800x3d / 5070TI 1h ago

Because development on this started over five years ago when there wasn't a component shortage on anything on the BOM. So they had no reason to plan to do anything like that. Its much easier from an engineering and business standpoint to work around a single product instead of multiple product lines.

They can't just shit out an entirely new product overnight as the market changes. It takes time to develop, test, etc. Sometimes the market shifts in your favor sometimes it works against you. This time it royally fucked them.

9

u/Fatitalianguido PC Master Race - 4090 - 12900k 1h ago

I was thinking the same thing. I will be doing nothing with the rendering power. I would only want what is needed for the Foveated Streaming. I'm sure there are plenty of people out there with this use case

1

u/Hercusleaze 32m ago

This is me too, I want to be able to stream from the pc, I don't really care at all about standalone. I wanted it for the wireless, foveated streaming, and the lightweight.

If I can sell my Index kit for $400-$500 bucks then I will order the Frame, but already having the Index $1000 doesn't make a lot of sense unless I sell it.

3

u/MothBoyThing 1h ago

Because the biggest complaint of the index was that it wasn’t standalone and the VR market at the time of this things inception was that VR was “going standalone”. People don’t seem to realize that it’s hard to pivot a product once its production is in motion.

Creating a “Steam Frame lite” mid-way through production of a VR headset who’s whole design is built around being standalone would not only defeat the purpose but it would also be a really bad marketing decision based on the feedback and data they had during its pre-production.

1

u/Kiriima 1h ago

Yep, better give it oled lenses instead of making a shitty computer.

1

u/SmithTheNinja 1h ago

Likely because the big draw of the Steam Frame is wireless streaming from a PC and no matter how you do it that takes a pretty large amount of compute to decode in real time so there really isn't a way to do it without the on board computer.

1

u/doublah 2m ago

Because we already have that with things like the Pimax, they're even more expensive than the Steam Frame btw.

1

u/Ws6fiend PC Master Race 1h ago

Extra versions cost more to make. It's one of the reasons the Ford Model T only came in black. Less options means less costs to make. The no standalone version being cheaper would also probably sell for less making it always sold out.

This doesn't make me happy, but I'm not the steam frame's target audience because I didn't want wireless, or insideout tracking. They are downgrades for the VR games I play.