I think Valve will have to somehow help developers migrate from the Meta's software store, as I feel like in the past few years, most VR games that aren't AAA have only came out on Quest.
this post was submitted on 15 Nov 2025
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Well they're saying you'll be able to install Android APK files on the Frame, which pretty much confirms this is exactly what they're going for. Meta headsets run Android and the games are APKs.
How does this work, can Arch run APK files?
I mean Waydroid is a thing you can install Android apps with. https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Waydroid
But that's basically a full VM that can do some tricks to make it look like a window. I imagine Valve must have some other translation layer.
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No.
Because the biggest problem with VR isn't the god damn hardware. It's the lack of games. The Frame looks pretty great; but what would save VR gaming is a truly killer app. Or ten.
There is actually quite a backlog on VR games by now. Admittedly mostly by b-grade studios, so not reaching the quality of HL:Alyx or so, but not bad either. Stuff like ~~Boneworks~~ Bonelab or the Alien and Metro games are genuinely quite good and came out recently.
Boneworks will be 6 years old next month
I meant the successor Bonelab 🤦
Bonelab is almost 4.
Yes, that is why they called it a "backlog"
But the age of the game doesn't diminish it, it is still a "killer app"
No.
Because the biggest problem with VR isn't the library. It's the price. The Frame looks pretty great; but what would save VR gaming is if people could afford a headset. Or two.
There are already at least 5 VR sets that are under $500 right now. But all but one (PSVR) is sold by Meta and ByteDance. It definitely is not just about the cost of entry.
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Valve is going the route of not just selling this for VR, but selling it to play non VR games on as well. If there's no eyestrain or latency issues it will be a good purchase for a lot of people...if the price is right.
No one wants apple products to game on, or their huge pricetag. No one wants quest because the hardware is locked down. This could be a great product to pick up if it works as well as is being reported so far
And the fragmentation certainly doesn't help The market is already small, and yet locked to single store exclusives still come out all the god damn time
Given how it probably undercuts growth of vr, I can only guess why would companies do that. Facebook in particular probably thinks it could be a monopoly, and doesn't want to settle for just a slice of the pie even if the pie could be bigger.
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Yes.... If it's priced low enough.
Also, they're not pitching this off as just a VR headset. They're pitching it as a private big screen you can regularly watch videos and play regular games on. While not anything new in that aspect, if it works well without eyestrain, many people will get it just for its non VR game use. Quest sucked because if it's ecosystem. Valve is once again touting it's hardware as actual hardware, with none of the lockdowns attached, and it will work with all the VR games from steam and other VR PC games, along with any steam games and other PC games.
My biggest issue with VR is the same as it was 10 years ago:
It costs a lot of money and I would not use it often enough to justify the purchase.
The lack of good games for it is by far my biggest issue.
It excels at flight sims, driving games. If there were really good mech games for it then it would be good at that.
I played the ever loving shit out squadrons in vr. BEING in a tie fighter was like a dream come tru and the immersion made the game incredible. Being able to look around the cockpit while dogfighting was one of the best experiences I've ever had in gaming.
But so much of what's on vr is just not that great. The tech has so much potential though.
It excels at flight sims, driving games. If there were really good mech games for it then it would be good at that.
I can imagine it's awesome for those kind of games, but I get too much motion sickness. And getting a motion sim rig would make it even more expensive, even if I had the space for one.
It took me quite a while and quite a lot of motion sickness to get used to it. I had to power through but it did stop eventually.
If I may ask, how old are you roughly? I've noticed my sense of balance is changing with age, probably for the worse like everything else :D But I'm not sure if that's good or bad for not getting VR sickess..
I ain't young
I agree with that!
Index was a really incredible piece of hardware, but I only ever played with it wired.
Excited to try this out. For it to be free of lighthouses and sensors is a huge upgrade by itself, but wireless is very exciting.
Fingers crossed… can they really compete on price with Quest at like 300$?
Index was 1k$.
Very curious to see the price points on these things.
Depends on how expensive it is.
One big problem is that people are probably used to meta's pricepoint for the quest systems... which Valve can't possibly compete with.
I'd love to thee it selling for about 500$, but according to interviews, it's probably going to cost about 1k$, which is simply too much for many people (in this economy, etc.).
It's sad that the majority either won't or can't pay full price for products, and go for those that are discounted due to vendor lock and/or built-in ads.
If the Steam Frame ends up costing only $1k I think that's a relatively good price, feels like everything else has doubled in the time since the original Vive was released. Obviously I hope for lower but I kind of expected it to cost at least $1.5k
1k is still way more than the average consumer is ready to pay for a console. Especially with the mostly single player nature of a headset.
I don't disagree with that part of the observation :) I also think it's going to be too expensive for the average gamer :( The HTC Vive cost $800 and was released close to the GTX 1080 which cost $600. If high end VR headsets follow a similar price development as high end GPUs, it would cost just above $1.3k based on the RTX 5080's release price of $1k. Anything less that this and it has become relatively cheaper, even though it would still be too expensive for most people. On the other hand, I was surprised by how little the Steam Deck cost, I thought it was also going to cost more than it did.
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Well, I would have said the same for 1k handhelds, yet they exist and apparently sell well enough for companies to make even more of them.
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Interesting!
I wonder what type of soft could break the stalemate. Simplicity is already a good plus, but maybe not enough?
I'd probably play some very immersive "MMO" - RPG.
Since the steam frame is an entire pc, you can run third party motion trackers on the headset itself like SlimeVR so every Steam Frame has the potential for full body VR for cheap.
Also it could run waydroid to potentially run android based VR games.
Also since it's is a PC, it would probably simplify game dev for VR games. And potentially run the same exe with a LOD/Quality slider to transition between pcvr and standalone.
Further, it may enable other companies like HTC to make steamos based headsets to escape Google.
Only personal experience but I have friends newly excited about VR woth this announcement
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I really want the wireless of the steam frame but as I already have PS5 and PSVR2 it will be tough to justify buying this and a PC to play it with. If the Steam Machine was powerful enough for a good VR experience and was under $600 and Steam Frame was under $500, I would go for it. That's why I went for PlayStation in the first place.
They would need to start churning out great VR games. They may be the only company that could. Being able to play existing games on a virtual 3DTV would also be fun.
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