Valve has admitted that it is not ready to give exact prices and release dates for the new Steam devices, although the general plan for a release in the first half of the year remains. The company explains the delay by the shortage of critical components on the market and their increasing cost.
Valve has admitted that it is not ready to give exact prices and release dates for the new Steam devices, although the general plan for a release in the first half of the year remains. The company explains the delay by the shortage of critical components on the market and their increasing cost.
According to Steam Hardware, after announcing three new products in November, Valve expected to quickly clarify the pricing and release schedule, but the «memory and storage shortage situation» in the industry has worsened. Due to limited availability and rising component costs, the company is reviewing both final prices and delivery times, especially for the Steam Machine and Steam Frame. Specific numbers promise to be announced when there is enough confidence that the plans will not have to be changed again.
In the same post, Valve revealed some of the technical details. According to the company’s internal tests, the Steam Machine should run most Steam games at 4K at 60 frames per second with scaling enabled, with more aggressive scaling or lower frame rates with variable refresh rates allowed for heavier projects. Valve also confirmed that users will be able to upgrade the SSD and RAM on the Steam Machine themselves.
The Steam Frame is positioned as a VR device, but with separate «system» features such as foveal streaming, which uses eye tracking to optimize the data flow. Streaming services offer to run through the built-in SteamOS browser. Limited dev kits are available for Steamworks developers through a partner site. Separately, Valve confirmed: Valve Index is no longer being produced, but support for owners will be maintained.
Valve announced the Steam Controller, Steam Machine, and Steam Frame back in November, launching a dedicated Steam Hardware blog. The company plans to continue posting updates there, including feature demos in text and video, as it finalizes pricing and specific release dates.
Previously, dev.ua wrote about how the newly announced Steam Frame VR headset will not only run games created for the Windows operating system. Valve will also support and encourage developers to port their Android apps to Steam.
