25 August 2026

Who the hell is the Steam Frame even for?

Do valve even know? 🤔

THIS ISNT COMPLETE AND READS AWFULLY RIGHT NOW LOL

Valve’s history of headsets

Valve have a long and extensive history in VR.

They practically pioneered the first “big boom” of consumer virtual reality by collaborating with HTC to make the HTC Vive. But, we’re discussing explicitly their headsets here, which are:

1. Valve Index
2. Steam Frame

Valve Index

When it was released all the way back in 2019 (wow, time flies, huh), the Valve Index was the greatest virtual reality headset money could buy you - and it was a damn good deal too! For just £950:

• The highest refresh rate on a HMD ever
• The sexiest controllers of all time
• Full finger tracking
• Pressure-sensitive grips
• Touch-capacitive buttons and triggers
• Truely premium BMR audio
• Gaming-first sofware made by competent engineers
• Gaming-first hardware made by competent engineers

Half of the above, arguably, still has not been topped. And this was in 2019!

If it weren’t for its unfortunate (but unavoidable for the time) shortcomings like…

• Base station tracking
• Fresnel lenses
• Low resolution (by today’s standards) display

…it would still probably be my pick over the Quest 3.

Matter of fact, you will still find new Reddit threads of people debating if they should pick up a Q3 or a second-hand Index to this day.

If people have choice paralysis so bad between devices released 5 years apart that they make a Reddit thread about it, you know you had some real good fucking engineering going on.

All good things must come to an end

Sadly, as we we tumble further in free-fall into VR’s inevitable decline, it looks like since 2023, Meta has come out on top - with their impossibly subsidised hardware seemingly being the end game for us VR enthusiasts, no matter if we like it or not.

And the Quest 3 genuinely does fuck. It is a damn good deal. A refurb’d one is £350~. Which is a great deal for what you get, given, of course, you do not mind big tech hoovering your data up (understatement).

However, I held out hope for Valve. Oh lord Gaben, I’m counting on you to deliver. I wished and wished for years. I want to believe. I want there to be a Index v2. I want rock the boat of Meta’s godawful VR monopoly for the good of the consumer…

…and in 2025, deliver Valve did!

Steam Frame

TODO

My thoughts

Okay, let’s start with my predictions, before the Frame was even announced, and then let’s move on to my thoughts.

My predictions

(At the time, “Fremont” was Valve’s internal / leaked codename for the Steam Machine)

I wrote that before anything was announced, and before we officially knew anything. Let’s compare my predictions to the actual Steam Frame.

• “releases at the same time as the Fremont”
  • I’ll count this as a correct prediction.
  • All 3 devices were announced at the same time, and planned to release at the same time.
  • Thank you, present global RAM shortage!
• “you can either buy with the [Steam Machine] or alone”
  • They bundled the Steam Machine and Steam Controller optionally together so I’m assuming they will too.
  • You technically will be able to buy them together, but my language implies it was going to be part of a bundle. I don’t think the Steam machine is powerful enough for most PCVR titles. We’ll find out soon!
  • “(w/ [Steam Machine] is £1000)”
    • 😂 🫵
    • The Steam Machine alone has a base price of >£1000!
• “wireless vr streaming to your pc/[steam machine] to headset”
  • Yeah, that’s literally the entire focus - “streaming first”.
  • It makes zero sense to not pivot towards wireless VR as
    1. Steam Link already exists for the Quest,
    2. it’s so, so much easier,
    3. meta sell the bag (deliberately to keep people on their ecosystem) with wireless support, so refuse to design a decent headset purpose-built for streaming,
    4. and Steam can generate free money by streamlining wireless PCVR without all the bullshit and just make it plug-and-play - Steam users already have a PC, and all their games on it.
• 2k120hz

So I knew what I was talking about. This was based off leaks and also common sense. When the Steam Frame was announced with specs and all, I couldn’t help but feel a little miffed however. In spite of their marketing, this did not feel like a device designed for streaming first.

I’m going to write my argument by juxtaposing the Frame against its primary competitor, the Quest 3 - released in 2023.

TODO