Steam Frame isn’t Launching Alongside Steam Controller on May 4th Due to RAM Shortage

By
Scott Hayden
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8

Steam Controller, Valve’s next-gen gamepad, is slated to launch on May 4th for $100, although you shouldn’t expect to see a big ‘buy’ button next to Steam Frame or Steam Machine.

Speaking to Polygon, Valve revealed that it’s only releasing Steam Controller next month for a pretty important (and slightly obvious) reason: Steam Controller “doesn’t have RAM in it,” Valve hardware engineer Steve Cardinali told Polygon.

“We wanted to build up quantity so that we could try to address everybody who wants one at launch,” Cardinali maintains.

Image courtesy Valve

Notably, Steam Machine is set to include at least two bundling options: one with a Steam Controller and one without, which could put a kink in Valve’s supply efforts to produce enough Steam Controllers, as Machine specifically features built-in support for the gamepad in an effort to make it more of a living room console.

Image courtesy Valve

In an IGN interview, Valve’s Pierre-Loup Griffais spoke circumspect about why the company isn’t pushing out all three products as previously planned.

“For us, the controller is something that stands out on its own and we want to make sure that we can get that to customers in parallel to anything that might be happening with Steam Machine.”

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While Griffais doesn’t specifically talk about issues with component sourcing, which have spurred RAM and storage prices to exponentially increase over the past year, Valve confirmed as much in February, noting the company had to “revisit” the pricing and release dates of both Steam Frame and Machine.

That said, Giffais again echoed that Valve doesn’t have exact details about the timeline (or price) for Steam Frame or Steam Machine, although he says the company is “hard at work on trying to get them out the door. I think we are definitely expecting to roll out some news soon about that, but in general, I think things are going well.”

Looking for more Steam Frame news?

Valve Unveils Steam Frame VR headset to Make Your Entire Steam Library Portable: Valve shows off Steam Frame, the standalone headset that can stream and natively play your entire Steam library—with only a few caveats right now.

Hands-on: Steam Frame Reveals Valve’s Modern Vision for VR and Growing Hardware Ambitions: We go hands-on with Valve’s latest and greatest VR headset yet.

Valve Says No New First-party VR Game is in Development: Valve launched Half-Life: Alyx (2020) a few months after releasing Index, but no such luck for first-party content on Steam Frame.

Valve is Open to Bringing SteamOS to Third-party VR Headsets: Steam Frame is the first VR headset to run SteamOS, but it may not be the last.

Valve Plans to Offer Steam Frame Dev Kits to VR Developers: Steam Frame isn’t here yet; Valve says it needs more time with developers first so they can optimize their PC VR games.

Valve Announces SteamOS Console and New Steam Controller, Designed with Steam Frame Headset in Mind: Find out why Valve’s new SteamOS-running Console and controller will work seamlessly with Steam Frame.

Steam Frame vs. Quest 3 Specs: Better Streaming, Power & Hackability: Quest 3 can do a lot, but can it go toe-to-toe with Steam Frame?

Steam Frame vs. Valve Index Specs: Wireless VR Gameplay That’s Generations Ahead : Valve Index used to be the go-to PC VR headset, but the times have changed.

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Scott Hayden
Well before the first modern XR products hit the market, Scott recognized the potential of the technology and set out to understand and document its growth. He has been professionally reporting on the space for nearly a decade as Editor at Road to VR, authoring more than 4,000 articles on the topic. Scott brings that seasoned insight to his reporting from major industry events across the globe.
  • deHavilland

    I assume in the sentence 'Notably, Steam Machine is set to include at least two bundling options' you mean 'Steam FRAME'?

    • Andrew Jakobs

      No, Steam Machine.

    • ZarathustraDK

      Steam Machine makes sense. Options would be: Steam Machine + controller, and Steam Machine + Frame.

      • hamburgargurka

        I would argue that the Frame is not an amazing candidate for the Machine because of the low 8GB of VRAM. It won't deliver a smooth experience for the most popular VR game that is VRChat, and that isn't a good look for Valve.

        • Herbert Werters

          For which VR games and which 2K VR headset is 8 GB of VRAM not enough? Could you explain that to me?

          • hamburgargurka

            Like I wrote, VRChat easily demands more than 8GB on lots of worlds, especially if you want to avoid aliasing with MSAA or supersampling.

  • Christian Schildwaechter

    TL;DR: Valve saying they were trying to keep the price of Frame below that of the Index (full kit at USD 999) was apparently about "a little below", which may now be in question. The post below is mostly speculation about Valve price policy and the resulting much higher expected prices for what was rumored as Deckard.

    While the delay of Steam Frame and Machine seemed inevitable, and those mostly interested in the controller basically begged Valve to release it separately, I'm somewhat concerned about the price. A lot of people were surprised about the USD 99 price tag, and while it certainly is a high quality controller with versatile input options, similarly priced to Sony or Nintendo controllers, and still cheaper than lots of so called Pro controllers, it's still rather expensive.

    The critical part is that it most likely doesn't cost anywhere near USD 99 to produce it. Controllers are high margin peripherals, and when the Oculus Rift CV1 initially shipped with an Xbox One controller that retailed for USD 60, teardowns put its production costs close to USD 15. So about 75% was just margin, something that is very likely also true for the PS Sense controllers Sony offers in Apple stores for USD 299.

    Now Valve said they weren't going to subsidize their new hardware, and justified the price with lots of design and engineering costs that have to be spread over much smaller unit numbers than with Xbox or PlayStation controllers. But it doesn't bode well for their overall pricing policy, as they now sort of set the expectation that what will come next won't be cheap either. They probably could have kept the price of the RAM-less controller lower if they really wanted to. But like with Index, and unlike with the Steam Deck, the name of the game again seems to be high level experience at a high level price.

    Early Deckard rumors mentioned USD 1200, split over two devices, which at the time looked like a bargain for the expected high end specs. We now have learned that there are actually three devices, designed to work together. A "streaming first" HMD offering extremely low latency from a matching mini console offering about six times the HMDs performance, plus a controller that can be 6DoF tracked from the HMD and offers input parity with the Steam Deck for all kinds of flat games to be played on a large virtual screen.

    No doubt the controller would be the the cheapest part, with the HMD most likely the most expensive. After the hand-ons, there was a lot of speculation about esp. the Steam Machine's price, which should perform similar to a PS5 console, so many assumed it would have to be similarly priced to be competitive. Valve engineers reacted with frozen faces when Linus Sebastian told them this in late 2025, hinting that the Machine would actually be more expensive.

    Similarly there were comparisons to the USD 500 Quest 3. Frame will be faster with slightly higher resolution and much better weight distribution, using the very versatile SteamOS with the option to also play flat games, but lacks features like color passthrough, handtracking and Quests large library of mobile optimized games. Frame's performance will be high enough to play Quest games too, but not enough for most PCVR games through local x86 emulation. Leaked framerates in (not yet Frame optimized) HL:A put it at 40-50FPS, so you'd still need a PC for most PCVR games, just like with Quest. Making it hard to justify a significantly higher price.

    Now Valve got lucky/waited long enough so that other vendors raised prices. The cheapest PS5 now costs USD 600, the PS5 Pro USD 900, and the Quest 3 USD 600. But of course Valve's production costs have also risen, so if their devices were planned to be more expensive before, they now will still be.

    So while the rumored pre-RAMpocalypse bundle price might have been for example USD 460 Machine, USD 680 Frame, USD 60 controller to get to USD 1200, by November 2025 this had apparently changed to Machine significantly more than USD 500, Frame close to USD 900-1000, with the controller now about 50% more expensive than many that were hoping for Valve to price things aggressively expected (the 2015 Steam Controller sold for USD 50).

    So what started at USD 1200 for an unspecified Deckard bundle has by now most likely passed USD 1600 and may slowly be creeping towards USD 2000, depending on how long and horrible the AI RAM grab fallout turns out to be. And around the time of the USD 1200 rumor, Deckard was still expected to feature at least 2.5K, if not 4K microOLEDs, and I personally expected it to use an AMD APU to run all PCVR games locally. A 2K LCD HMD paired with a PS5 class mini PC for more than 50% extra on top of that rumored price would be a very different value proposition, no matter how much I'd love to run SteamOS on a standalone HMD.

    • Herbert Werters

      However, the price increases for the PS5 and Quest 3 have not yet reached retailers or customers. Second-hand prices have not risen either. It could take a very long time before these price increases are actually felt by consumers. We do not yet know how they will react to this, however. Therefore, the positive effect for Valve exists only on paper and in theory. People’s purchasing behaviour will show what the real effects will be. Nobody wants dead stock on the shelves.

      Incidentally, it’s already being speculated that Valve may have set the price of the Steam Controller higher in order to subsidise the prices of the Machine and Frame. The Machine will likely come with a controller, and with a price of $99, the Machine then appears cheaper in turn, potentially justifying the higher price to consumers. So, strategically speaking, that could work.

      I feel exactly the same as you about the prices. For me, though, the Frame is still interesting and I’ll be switching from the Quest 3 to the Frame. Just because of the wireless dongle, which you can use really quickly and easily on any computer without cables or a power supply, the controllers with a gamepad layout, and the weight of the HMD and how well-balanced it is on your head. The fact that it uses an open Steam OS with a desktop interface is just brilliant too. Personally, it’s worth it to me. As for everything else, I can also get that after the „RAMpocalypse“.