Valve’s virtual reality plans hit actual reality

# Valve’s virtual reality plans hit actual reality Source: [https://www.theverge.com/tech/995055/valve-steam-frame-price-ram-impact](https://www.theverge.com/tech/995055/valve-steam-frame-price-ram-impact) [](https://www.theverge.com/authors/sean-hollister) Sean Hollister is a senior editor and founding member of The Verge who covers gadgets, games, and toys\. He spent 15 years editing the likes of CNET, Gizmodo, and Engadget\. [The Steam Frame headset is here](https://www.theverge.com/tech/994267/steam-frame-review), and it may not surprise you: it was supposed to cost less[than $1,059](https://www.theverge.com/games/994376/valve-steam-frame-vr-headset-price-release-date)\. “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](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O3AoSbwT8Nk)\. “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](https://www.theverge.com/games/952004/valve-steam-machine-price-not-subsidizing)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*](https://www.tomshardware.com/virtual-reality/valve-steam-frame-interview-why-it-costs-up-to-usd1-300-snapdragon-power-and-10x-foveated-streaming): “there’s not really any sort of the kind of distortion compared to just the price of the parts in there\.” [When*IGN*asked](https://www.ign.com/articles/steam-frame-the-valve-interview)Griffais why Valve didn’t simply ship the Steam Frame with less RAM, he answered: “I think at this point, things were a little bit too far in development to fully rethink the product\.” When it first announced the Steam Frame, Valve said it was targeting a lower price than[its previous Valve Index headset](https://www.theverge.com/news/817967/valve-index-vr-headset-stopped-manufacturing-frame), which cost $999 at launch and required a direct plug into a PC\. The Steam Frame is wireless, can stream from a PC over Wi\-Fi or its included 6GHz USB wireless dongle, and it can also play not\-so\-demanding games on its own Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chip and 16GB of RAM\. Valve said that amount of RAM helped it get[*Half\-Life: Alyx*running natively on the headset](https://www.theverge.com/games/994454/valve-half-life-alyx-standalone-arm-port)\. While the price might be high, Valve says it’s “pretty comfortable” with it because other computing gear is getting more expensive at the same time\. “\[I\]f you look at the memory and anything that has a similar amount of memory, it’s kind of trending the same direction and Steam Machine is not really getting more expensive than a comparable PC,” Griffais told IGN\. “They’re kind of evolving at the same spot in the same market, and I think the same will apply to the Frame as well\.” **Follow topics and authors**from this story to see more like this in your personalized homepage feed and to receive email updates\. - Sean Hollister