No one is happy about the Steam Frame’s price, and to rub salt into the wound we now have some idea of how much Valve’s original price for the VR headset prior to AI driving consumer hardware costs through the roof. While the system probably still wouldn’t have matched the likes of the Meta Quest 3 penny-for-penny, it could have cost around $750.
In a recent interview with IGN, Valve software developer Pierre-Loup Griffais stated that the Steam Frame suffered a similar price hike to the Steam Deck, just like the Steam Machine prior to launch. While the ongoing storage and RAM crises impacted manufacturing costs, and continue to do so, Griffais highlights that “the main board cost, the layers of the main board itself, the copper, [and] shipping” all took their toll on the final MSRP.
Given that Steam Deck price rises are currently up 44% in the US and 35% in the UK, this puts the original cost of the headset at around $735 / £659. Of course, this is just an estimate, and while these systems share some similarities, their respective hardware is markedly different. The headset rocks an Arm SoC, while the handheld packs an x86 chip, for instance.
As mentioned earlier, such a price would still make the Steam Frame more expensive than a Quest 3 ($599 / £550). However, I’d certainly feel comfortable paying that smaller premium for Valve’s best-in-class wireless game streaming, SteamOS, and minimal concern for my privacy.
Despite the exponential increase in manufacturing costs that have slightly sullied the Frame’s mass appeal, Valve has shared that these forces haven’t affected the Steam Deck 2. The priorities for Valve remain the user experience, including a performance uplift of at least 50%.
Check out our Steam Frame review for our in-depth thoughts on Valve’s latest VR offering.
