The takeaway: After months of rumors and leaks, Valve has lastly launched its standalone VR headset, full with pricing and delivery particulars. At practically twice the price of Meta’s equally specced Quest 3, the Steam Body’s worth leans closely on Valve’s software program stack and its assist for a completely open Arm Linux desktop expertise.
Prospects occupied with Valve’s new headset can register for a reservation lottery, which closes on September 17 at 1 PM ET. The Steam Body is offered at $1,059 for a primary package with 256GB of inner storage or $1,299 for a 1TB premium mannequin.
Valve will randomize the checklist as soon as sign-ups finish, with the primary buy invites going out on September 18. Each configurations ship with two controllers and Valve’s devoted 6GHz wi-fi adapter, together with a free copy of Half-Life: Alyx, which Valve has rebuilt as a local Arm64 model that runs standalone on the headset.
Valve’s personal energy provide prices $29 further, although the Steam Body additionally works with the Steam Deck charger or any appropriate USB-C provide. In the meantime, a $59 ergonomic accent package contains controller hand straps, a headset high strap, and an prolonged gentle blocker that seals the hole on the nostril.
Just like the equally priced Steam Machine, the Steam Body is probably going a sufferer of the RAM shortages brought on by the AI information heart buildout. Rising provide prices additionally prompted Qualcomm to hike costs for its processors originally of this month.
As Valve beforehand confirmed, the Steam Body packs a Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 SoC with 16GB of LPDDR5X RAM, a 2160 x 2160 LCD panel per eye behind customized pancake lenses, refresh charges as much as 120Hz with an experimental 144Hz mode, and monochrome exterior cameras.
The {hardware} does not seem like a transformative improve over the $600 Meta Quest 3 or $450 Quest 3S; its primary benefits are a bigger reminiscence pool, a microSD card slot for expanded storage, eye monitoring, extra controller inputs, and a probably bigger software program library.
Whereas the Quest headsets kind of lock customers into Meta’s software program ecosystem with PC streaming as a bonus, Valve’s various helps Steam video games by way of streaming or standalone play utilizing a number of compatibility layers.
An preliminary checklist of video games verified for native set up contains VR titles resembling Preserve Speaking and No one Explodes, Superhot VR, and Pistol Whip. In the meantime, conventional video games like Hole Knight: Silksong, Hades II, Balatro, Portal 2, and Cuphead additionally run properly on a digital display. Customers can boot out of Steam into a completely unlocked Arm64 Linux desktop surroundings to put in PC and even probably Android apps.
Official movies strolling customers via the preliminary setup leaked late final month, and the YouTube channel ShortCircuit by chance uploaded first-impression movies early over the weekend.