Steam Frame price: where Valve’s next VR headset is likely to land
Sadly, the Steam Frame will probably cost a lot more than we thought
💰 The 256GB Steam Frame is expected to cost between $899 and $999
📈 This price point is higher than initial $699 estimates and exceeds the Meta Quest 3
🥽 Featuring a Snapdragon 8 Series chip and 16GB of RAM, it prioritizes PC-grade streaming and modularity
🚀 Higher storage models may exceed $1,000 due to rising component costs
After releasing the Steam Controller and finally revealing the price and release date of the Steam Machine, only one piece of Valve’s trio of hardware remains a mystery: the Steam Frame.
The VR headset still hasn’t been officially unveiled, aside from its specs and form factor, as we’re still waiting for Valve to share that all-important price, pre-order, and release date.
Several signs point to a reveal taking place soon, but after the Steam Machine’s sticker price of $1,049 sent shockwaves through the gaming community, it’s understandable that gamers are bracing themselves for the Steam Frame price to exceed what we expected.
Steam Frame price prediction
Speculation points towards a price tag of $899 to $999 for the 256GB Steam Frame, an increase on the initial $699 some first predicted. In an interview with Upload VR, Valve said it was aiming to supply the Steam Frame for less than the $1,000 full-kit that it charged for the Valve Index.
That would still make Valve’s headset significantly more expensive than the Meta Quest 3, which costs $649 for the 512GB model after a price increase.
It’s the Steam Frame’s 16GB of RAM that will have potential buyers sweating, as the component crisis has made memory extremely expensive.
Of course, the Steam Frame is positioned differently to Meta’s headset, which is a standalone device that also offers mixed-reality experiences. The Steam Frame is a streaming-first experience, designed for PC-grade fidelity and modular flexibility. It works standalone, too, and is powered by a Snapdragon 8 Series processor with 16GB of RAM.
And it’s that 16GB of RAM that will have potential buyers sweating, as the component crisis has made memory extremely expensive. The Steam Machine, which has a single stick of 16GB of RAM and a GPU with only 8GB of VRAM, was supposed to be $750, but Valve had to settle for a price of $1,049.
There’s a high chance that the Steam Frame could also exceed four figures then, or fall just below it at $999.
A higher-storage version of the Steam Frame will also be affected by the component crisis, as storage has similarly seen a steep price increase. The 1TB Steam Frame model will cost even more, and will almost certainly exceed $1,000. For example, the price difference between the Steam Machine 512GB model and 2TB model is $300.
Brace for impact
No matter how much the Steam Frame costs, we’ll either be pleasantly surprised it isn’t more, or severely disappointed it’s even higher than expected. Either way, the Steam Machine’s price points to an expensive VR headset that may now be unaffordable to those who originally coveted it.
Up next: Steam Machine’s misleading marketing is the main reason it will fail, not the price
Adam Vjestica is The Shortcut’s Senior Editor. Formerly TechRadar’s Gaming Hardware Editor, Adam has also worked at Nintendo of Europe as a Content Marketing Editor, where he helped launch the Nintendo Switch. He also runs a retro gaming YouTube channel called Game on, boy! Follow him on X @ItsMrProducts.