No prices yet. I may never financially recover from this.
Doubt I would ever do the VR headset. I simply don’t play the kind of games that work well with (or even need) VR. Although come to think of it, a VR Civilization VI game would be wild.
But the Steam Machine would be interesting to replace the old laptop I currently have running as my multimedia box on my television (streaming, retro gaming, steam mirroring, etc…) It would be more powerful than the well worn old dude I’m currently using.
They did at least do: https://www.meta.com/experiences/sid-meiers-civilization-vii-vr/5781689118524197/?srsltid=AfmBOoqbqaOcZk-uwva84T4NpmPU5A6M8h1LPhsJc2EkCyD5ujrcFI_m
No idea if it is vaguely any good or not…
I’ve got a bit of a VR library, but the new ease of setup with this one does have me considering how I’d use the virtual display features. Even with trackpads, a lot of mouse-driven games aren’t great on Steam Deck, but I’m replaying Baldur’s Gate 2 right now and wondering how the mouse controls might work out in VR.
Real glad I can soon ditch the DualSense Edge and its only half-functional gimmicks !
I will miss the adjustable triggers, but I will NOT miss the randomly incorrect button mappings, and “extra buttons” that get fucked up if you ever connect it to an actual PS5
let’s hope they sell these globally this time.
well fuck
Been waiting for this vr headset to release for years, only to find they’ve used lcd’s instead of OLED screens. I’m so disappointed and pissed.
Fair assessment. It’s got all the bells and whistles except OLED. Makes me wonder if they’re planning on an OLED model in a year or two like they did with the Deck. They know there will be plenty of double dippers.
I waited long enough. Just gonna go ahead and get the psvr2 with the pc adapter.
If Valve makes ARM Linux work properly as a gaming/desktop OS, I will uhh hmm.
I will buy this thing.
I wonder if they’re still using Arch for the basis of this. Its ARM version is kinda not so great, although not terrible either.
I’ll buy the VR headset if, as well as streaming games, you can also play video/mirror your desktop. I know that’s not the market they’re going for, but it seems to me that those are the main use-cases of VR headsets aside from gaming and to my non-tech way of thinking it doesn’t seem harder than streaming a game.
play video/mirror your desktop
They have demos of those things in the trailer. Apparently the pass-through is black and white, but it supports peripherals, so adding a color HD camera to the front to pass-through HQ video while desktop working is completely feasible. It is also just a linux computer, so if Valve doesn’t develop the software for it, someone will. Essentially kicking the (very tiny and limited) vision pro market out from under Apple.
Yes but …
no hand tracking no color passthrough no hardware upgrade no WebXR no new VR proper contentStill, it’s good obviously, not having to rely on BigTech. This was also possible before though as I pointed out in https://lemmy.ml/post/38899489/22202786 with e.g. Lynx XR1, as a rooted Android standalone HMD with no account required.
Anyway IMHO the big questions for VR on Linux more broadly is what changes upstream on KDE in terms of immersive UX? Is KDE Plasma becoming a VR graphical shell? Does it have 3D widgets? Does it impact freedesktop in any way?
(copy of https://lemmy.ml/post/38899489/22202838 as I posted there first)
Price will make or break this thing. Rumors going around its gonna be around 1k which is a tall ask for the listed specs. 500, I’d buy it without any promise of any Valve backed VR game and I’m not even big on VR. For the rumored price, I’d need to see more commitment from Valve and latest news right now are saying they aren’t developing a VR title.
Sadly agree. I’ve been waiting for years, claiming I’d buy whatever they sell… but honestly right now this would feel like a donation more than something I eagerly want, even less need.
FWIW I’m also NOT the market, I have … I don’t actually know how many but at least 5 XR headsets.
Sad about the monochrome passthrough but otherwise pretty hyped for more VR hardware. The Index was a disappointment to me so glad to see it’s more in line with the Quest 3, especially the controllers. They look perfect.
I think it’s just not trying to be a pass through headset, like the vision pro and galaxy xr, which is honestly fine with me, if it keeps the price from going into the thousands. If it’s feature built for giving a virtual display for gaming, and does that better than anything else (and I think it will, given the special dongle specifically for streaming games), then that has value.
Yeah I can see why they’d not implement it, not even that interested in AR, it’s just a nice QOL feature that I’d miss.
Valve remains committed to an open PC ecosystem
happy noises
I wonder if the Steam Frame is the codename deckard. I was really excited for that because it was supposed to have Steam Deck performance, but with an Arm processor that will be hard since most games need an emulation layer.
Really excited for this and hopefully that means steamvr on Linux will actually start working better! The current Beta build is much better but still lots of work to do.
I’m definitely getting the frame as upgrade from quest 3 which I rarely use due to it being attached to Meta. The controller is no brainer considering that old steamdeck controller is still one of the best controllers on the market. Not sure about steam machine mostly because I just built my own PC - would have totally waited for it if I knew it was coming but it looks so slick.
Very excited for Linux in 2026!
I will buy the VR headset immediately
Did Valve just announce THREE of something?
Holy shit you’re right.
How big a deal is this eye tracking that then only shows higher resolution stuff where you’re looking? Is it legit and works well, or is it a gimmick VR uses to say its’ better than it is?
legit and works well
legit works well… but also not a magic wand. It doesn’t transform a low-end rig in a powerful machine.
Valve has only made mention of streaming bandwidth, nothing about the game being rendered (like how PSVR2 does it). As it stands it won’t do anything for the GPU performance.
Maybe there’s some sort of API games will be able to hook into, I seriously hope so.AFAICT for the Frame it’s only foveated streaming, not foveated rendering.
Foviated rendering is a massive thing, usually only done in the expensive stuff.
It gives you a pretty big FPS boost because the device doesn’t have to render stuff the human eye can’t see anyway
This is foviated streaming. The PC still renders everything at full, but the streaming compression is optimized for where you’re looking
Does that mean there’s no forviated rendering in standalone mode?
I imagine there will be for some games, but it relies on the game developer implementing it. Whereas foviated streaming works for all games.
it’s a huge thing
Apple vision pros do it and it is pretty great
Sometimes I think about how LOATHED Steam was when it launched. That was probably valid even. Still, it feels worth noting that Valve is maybe THE only company from my childhood that feels like it largely stayed true to its spirit, or whatever.
If Valve went DRM free like GOG, I would have no reason to ever buy games anywhere else
(apart from exclusives, which should be illegal IMO)
People who came to Steam later on probably don’t realise that when it was new it barely fucking worked.
Downloads crawled, games refused to launch because of authentication issues, friends/chat was offline for literally months, etc.
The only reason it became widely adopted was because Valve forced you to use it if you wanted to play the latest CS or, later, HL2. Everyone hated it.
What if he really wanted to make it up to you? Is there anything he could do to apologize?
HALF. LIFE. FUCKING. THREE.
Exactly. How tf do you propose to get it if you digest him? You’ve hit on the crux of the issue here.
friends/chat was offline for literally months
Friends lists didn’t work reliably for years.
I only got Steam when HL2 released because I had no need for it before then. I don’t remember having any real negative feelings about it.
I think its because there’s likely more people who got into Steam after Steam was already a pretty popular storefront so clueless about the growing pains. My first ever PC game purchase was from the Steam store and that was maybe back in the 2010s.
So those going on about days of CDs or whatever are talking to a generation that had already moved onto digital.
I was one of the haters when it first launched because I was on dialup at the time and physical discs I bought were forcing me to install steam AND THEN install a massive patch that did not work on dialup. My first day playthrough of Skyrim was ruined because of that. Took a week for that shit to download even though I went physically to a store.
But now Steam is the last man standing between us and corporate greed.
But now Steam is the last man standing between us and corporate greed.
Man how quickly people forget what things were like before the lawsuits forced valve to make steam more consumer friendly and regulatory abiding…
When was that?
I remember being annoyed that I had to install yet another launcher and make yet another account when I was installing portal. But I didn’t know at the time that this was the launcher to end most other launchers and accounts, or at the very least made most of that transparent other then adding an extra click to launch some games.
Iirc, Blizzard had just replaced the wow in-game patcher with a launcher (though I don’t recall if they had a unified launcher for each game, if they all had their own at that point, or if it was just wow), Oblivion had a game launcher, and I think there were a few others. Some of them even needed to be installed separately iirc.
Steam is nice because, being the launcher for most of my games, it’s just always open and helps organize my games. And it doesn’t feel like its main purpose is to make money, with everything else just being about opening pathways to that money. And even though it is meant to make Valve money, it’s the lack of blatant dark patterns and constant upsell attempts that makes it feel better than most of the rest of the commercial world.
It basically didn’t add any value to the experience. We just wanted to play CS, and steam just got in the way.
because most people got exposed to steam’s launch on HL2’s launch. Where they bought the physical game, came home, installed it off like 5 CDs… then had to run steam to decrypt it and download more files because the fucking install was encrypted, and the goddamn fucking decryption took like 8 hours if you didnt have the worlds greatest computer.
Nope, I’m still totally not salty about not being able to play the game I fucking bought until the day after cause bullshit encryption fuckery, why would you ever think that.
I still have that goddamn box somewhere… i need to dig it up and see what release retail HL2 is like compared to HL2 you’d downlaod today from steam…
Well, I bought Half-Life and OG You Don’t Know Jack on discs at Target, then had to return them because HL didn’t run and YDKJ was “too worldly.” So.
It happened to me (with blizzard)…and it will happen to you!
I just paid $20 for a physical copy Counter Strike, and I find out I need to install an additional launcher and make an account to play the game I just installed. It’s the principle of the thing!
They have good PR and fanboy propaganda. They’re every bit as evil as every game company out there. Steam fans just got tricked into thinking Gabe was THEIR billionaire and steam is THEIR billionaire corporation, and they can do no wrong. No other game platform has a fan base as aggressive and hostile when you point it ou
Edit: im being downvoted, sent IM threats and have had my comments on here removed by mods, if that’s not proof of what I was saying I don’t know what is lol
Steam’s main thing is that they have recognised that killing the golden goose is a bad thing for everybody. They have consistently played for long term growth and profits, over purely short term gains.
Steam has made mistakes, but their demonstrated values have been shown to be mostly compatible with mine. I can work with that.
Also, them being privately owned means that they are less have seagull investors swooping in and demanding short term gains now now now.
Why does everyone here Yuck other peoples Yum? You aren’t forced to buy them
The irony of this being your previous comment
Edit: Since parent is ninja editing - his reply called me a cocksucker, hence the mod removal. Yay for blatant homophobia
Removed by mod
The downvotes seem to agree with you…?
