Valve has officially launched the Steam Frame headset, which is priced at $1,059. The company initially aimed for a lower price point, but rising costs in the global RAM and storage markets forced an increase. Developer Jeremy Selan noted that the team worked to keep the final price as low as possible given these market conditions.
The device features a Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 processor and 16GB of RAM. According to Valve, this hardware configuration allows the headset to run Half-Life: Alyx natively. When asked about reducing RAM to lower costs, developer Pierre-Loup Griffais explained that the product was already too far along in its development cycle to make such changes.
Valve has not explicitly confirmed if it is selling the Steam Frame at cost, though Griffais suggested the price reflects the cost of components without significant distortion. The headset supports wireless streaming from a PC via Wi-Fi or an included 6GHz USB dongle. It is designed to operate independently for less demanding games.
The company maintains that the pricing is consistent with broader trends in the computing hardware market. Valve compared the situation to its previous Steam Machine, noting that the Steam Frame is not becoming more expensive than comparable PCs. The headset is positioned as a successor to the Valve Index, which launched at $999.
