Valve Explains Why the Steam Frame Headset Costs More Than Originally Intended

Valve has confirmed that the newly revealed Steam Frame virtual reality headset was originally intended to be much more affordable. According to comments made by Valve developer Jeremy Selan to the BBC, fluctuations in the global RAM and storage markets heavily impacted the final pricing. Valve fought hard to bring the cost down to its current level, but broader hardware market pressures ultimately pushed the price to $1,059.

When asked by IGN why Valve did not simply ship the headset with a lower amount of memory to reduce costs, developer Pierre-Loup Griffais explained that development was already too far along to completely rethink the hardware design. The Steam Frame features a Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chip and 16GB of RAM. Valve noted that this specific amount of memory was necessary to successfully run games like Half-Life: Alyx natively on the device.

Despite the high price tag, Valve stated that it remains comfortable with the cost because other consumer computing gear is experiencing similar upward pricing trends. Griffais indicated in an interview with Tom’s Hardware that the pricing reflects the actual cost of parts, sharing a similar manufacturing approach to the $1,049 Steam Machine living room PC. The wireless headset supports streaming from a PC over Wi-Fi or via an included 6GHz USB wireless dongle, while also handling less demanding titles independently on its built-in hardware.