// PC GAMER — GAMING
Valve targeted a lower price for the Steam Frame, then the memory crisis happened: 'I wish we could have shipped it at the price that we were at last year'
You gotta feel for anyone working on a project like this right now. Very few companies are benefitting from the memory crisis.
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After many years of waiting and a few false starts over on Reddit, the Steam Frame is finally here. We even have a price for the virtual reality headset, which is set to ship imminently to customers. Hold onto your headsets…
An additional Ergonomic Accessories Kit is available to purchase alongside the Frame. It includes two hand straps for the controllers, a head strap for the headset, and an extended light blocker. This costs 49 USD/ 69 CAD/ 59 EUR/ 49 GBP/ 89 AUD/ 229 PLN.
Be honest, were you expecting this sorta price for the Steam Frame? Some called it, due to the similar cost of a Valve Index for most of its lifespan; though I expect many of us adjusted our expectations following the onset of the memory crisis, and the subsequent launch of the Steam Machine. Our Andy called that the biggest victim of the RAMpocalypse, and you could argue something similar for the Steam Frame.
It's certainly been a journey for Valve. A week prior to the Steam Frame's launch, we spoke with two engineers at Valve about the project: Joy Lyons, hardware engineer, and Jeremy Selan, software engineer. The memory crisis and the price were a big part of that conversation. From that chat, we can confirm that Valve had aimed for a lower price point than the one it's launching the Frame for today.
"We set out to design this hardware with one particular price in mind, but we've made choices to make sure that we're making a product that is choiceful, that people can purchase, they can upgrade with different features later. But we wanted to make sure we had a base product with really great performance. Then that price target shifted due to the ongoing RAM crisis around the world."
Lyons also said that forecasting for the cost of certain components used in the Steam Frame is an ongoing challenge.
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"We don't know what pricing is in the future. We try to monitor these things, but we're certainly very aware of it.