Steam Hardware

dont expect much from the machine performance wise given its specs (basically assume about ps5 performance)

the vr headset though is actually the more interesting product when it comes to effort put into it.

curious to see how much the snapdragon 8 gen 3 handles linux arm to x86 performance. ive seen the same chipset for android arm to x86 performance (see arm based chinese handhelds like Ayn Odin, using game native/game hub)

pitching the headset as both a vr device and what is essentially a monitor/all in one is a choice.

Three year old SoC

It's marketed as a "streaming first" headset. It includes a 6e USB router in the box. The headset has WiFi 7.

Where did you hear about the very bad screen door effect?

Regarding the price, as far as I know, Meta only sells the Quest 3 for $500 because they sell every unit at a significant loss. I don't imagine that Valve can afford or wants to do that. I recall reading that any other company would need to sell the Quest 3 for 2-3x the price in order to make money. In other words, Meta has been "dumping" to dominate the market.

As far as Steam layer getting cloned onto the Quest 3, I think Meta would do everything in their power to keep that from happening.

The most disappointing part is the rumoured pricing of “aiming to be under $1000”.

$1 is "under $1000".

at $999, even for the 1TB model, this is a really tough sell.
I'm not sure I'd get one, even though I love what they're doing, and want to support it.

I really hope, that the "under $1000" is a misunderstanding from the "cheaper than index", which currently sells for 539€ (~$625, incl tax) without controller and base stations.
That would be a great price.
I can just hope it's nearer to that than the $1000.

It's about 30% faster than the quest GPU wise or similar to a 1050 in shader performance, a bit behind a 1050 on some other things.

It will probably be playing PC games at 720 to 1080p, upscaled and framengend to 4k at 90hz. That's not terrible considering the power usage of the device. It has to run off of batteries. If it's much over $500 it won't be a huge hit, if it's 650 or less, then it will likely become the best choice for VR but not break into the mainstream. The steam machine, if it can hit $500 would be very popular, although $500 is not really a lot of money these days with all the inflation.

Also pretty much all modern consoles have been eye watering my expensive on launch save the switch. Even the switch 2 was very pricey.

Early adopters will jump on at the higher price point and everyone else will get on board when the price falls.

Honestly the thing I REALLY care about here is the steam controller 2. I LOVED the original. Gimme gimme gimme

I personally expect that they will want to cover hardware cost, while being willing to subsidize development cost with the steam store.
So I think the low storage models will make a slight loss for valve in the beginning, while the higher storage models will get that back to even overall for valve.

It‘s a 6-core CPU, with a 35 watt TDP. It will not be able to compete with a 7900X with 12 cores and a 5 times higher TDP - and not with a 7600X with 8 cores and 105W TDP.

Still, that’s absolutely fine for gaming.