Steam Machines have returned: all the news about Valve’s new hardware universe

The Steam Frame headset is here, and it may not surprise you: it was supposed to cost less than $1,059. “We set out to come out with a device that would have been far more affordable, but the global RAM market, the global storage market have impacted us the same way they’ve impacted everybody,” Valve developer Jeremy Selan told the BBC. “We fought hard to get it even to this price.”

I haven’t yet seen Valve say whether it’s selling the Steam Frame at cost, like the company confirmed it was doing with the $1,049 Steam Machine living room PC. But Valve developer Pierre-Loup Griffais hinted maybe so in an interview with Tom’s Hardware: “there’s not really any sort of the kind of distortion compared to just the price of the parts in there.”

Hey! I’m Sean Hollister, you might have seen me around this place a few times, and I just spent three weeks beta-testing the Steam Frame, Valve’s hotly anticipated new don’t-call-it-a-VR-headset that might also be an early glimpse at the future of games that run everywhere.

At 4PM ET today (that’s 1PM PT for West Coasters like me!), I will answer as many of your questions as humanly possible about this headset, its controllers, its ergonomic accessories kit, and the Arcturus Vision Camera in a subscriber-only AMA. If you want me to test something special for you, get your question in ASAP — I’ll see if I can try it between now and then!

Today, Valve is launching its first headset since 2019 — the new Steam Frame — while dodging our questions about whether it’ll ever make another VR game to go with it. But buyers of the $1,059 gadget will get one flagship VR game anyhow, and it’s great.

Every Steam Frame comes with a copy of 2020’s Half-Life: Alyx, one of the best VR games yet made and a good game, period, and you won’t even need a desktop PC — because Valve has ported the entire game to ARM64 so it can run natively on the Frame’s Qualcomm Snapdragon Gen 3 chip.

Valve is finally releasing its Steam Frame headset, which can run both flat and VR games locally and stream both kinds of games from your PC. The Steam Frame will start at $1,059. Valve will also offer a 1TB model that starts at $1,299.

Every Steam Frame will come with a copy of Half-Life: Alyx, Valve’s made-for-VR entry in the Half-Life franchise, and Valve has ported the game to run natively on the headset as well as via streaming.

For nearly three weeks, I’ve been testing the limits of Valve’s Steam Frame, the company’s new wearable PC. At first glance, it’s easy to write it off as a pricey headset that missed the VR craze. At $1,059 with 256GB of storage or $1,299 for 1TB, it costs two to three times as much as similar-looking headsets from Meta.

You should not write it off that way. The Steam Frame isn’t just a VR headset. It’s not even primarily a VR headset. And it’s the most comfortable headset I’ve ever worn. It weighs just over 1 pound (469g) with its optional top head strap attached, and doesn’t leave a mark on my face even after hours of use.

Valve just leaked several new videos showing the Steam Frame’s unboxing, setup process, and various accessories. The videos apparently appeared on the ARM Steam client following an update, but they were “quickly pulled after that,” according to the Steam Hardware Updates account on X.

The Steam Frame is Valve’s virtual-reality headset that can stream games from a PC or play them locally. Valve first took the wraps off the headset last year, and it offers LCD screens with 2160 x 2160 resolution per eye, a Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chip, and an up to 110-degree field of view. But these leaked videos offer a closer look at what it might be like to unbox and set up the new device.

For the last couple weeks, I’ve been in an extremely lucky position: I’ve been spending a lot of time playing games on Valve’s Steam Machine.

We gave the Steam Machine a 6, and I don’t disagree with my colleague Sean Hollister’s review. But even though I already own a PS5 and an Xbox Series X, and even though I’ve experienced the Steam Machine’s drawbacks for myself, I would spend the $1,049 to buy one right now.

Dbrand is the company that shipped a product that told Nintendo’s legal team to “go fuck yourself,” and the company that had a second set of lawyer-dodging PS5 plates ready when Sony threatened to sue over the originals. But on June 29th, the company finally ate some serious humble pie, canceling its Portal-themed Companion Cube external shell for the Steam Machine after Valve lawyered up.

I couldn’t believe it. Surely Dbrand had to have seen this coming. There must be a plan B, right?

Dbrand announced Monday that it’s refunding everyone who bought its Steam Machine Companion Cube, which it said it made “without a license from Valve.” Dbrand announced the Portal-themed Steam Machine accessory in November and took preorders for it last Monday. But a few days later, the product had disappeared from the company’s website and the teaser video promoting it had been made private after Valve contacted the company.

Dbrand says that the Companion Cube became “the second-fastest selling product in our 15-year history, behind only the Switch 2 Killswitch” after it opened preorders on June 22nd. However, Valve’s legal team reached out to Dbrand and “requested we take down the product and launch film immediately. This was entirely within their rights, and they were direct, fair, and respectful throughout.”