Valve offered a sentence of new guidance for Steam Frame shipments after blowing out the original early 2026 guidance offered late last year.
The new page on Valve’s Steam begins with the following sentence:
“Today we are expanding the Verified program to include Steam Machine and Steam Frame, both of which are shipping this summer.”
Summer begins June 21 and ends September 22 for Valve’s U.S.-based offices.
I’m mostly interested in the Frame as a standalone headheld mobile computing device running Linux for virtual flatscreen shenanigans. But at the current market conditions i dont see how i can justify the price for an enthusiast toy to fuck around with.
I already own a Pico4. Its android 10 and has for todays standards a pretty underpowered SOC. But otherwise it comes awfully close to a poor mans Frame. Its good enough and cost me 300(!) bucks 2 years ago.
The low latency foveated streaming is cool and all. But i havent played a single VR title since january. High quality VR games are so rare now and some of the best/better studios are just closing left and right. The main selling point for this device is super uncompelling for me tbh. Even if Valve shadowdrops HL3 alongside the Frame… I wont buy another headset for >1000$ for a single game if i already have one which can play it just fine.