I think the news here is not that a reservation system will be used. That much is obvious after introducing it for the controller. The more interesting part here is that Valve is actively preparing the launch for the Steam machines and frames right now.
…duh? The Steam Deck had queues, too. Why wouldn’t they be ready to do the same, successful thing as before?
People were worried because they didn’t for the steam controller at initial launch
They wanted all of the news articles that it sold out. Good free marketing.
Apparently also the Frame, maybe? Which is much more interesting to me.
I absolutely fell in love with VR with the Quest 1 and 2, but I just couldn’t in good conscience stay in a meta ecosystem.
I’m geeked out about the Frame. It’ll be a day one purchase for me. I’m pre-loading the money in my account and will stay up or wake up at any hour required.
I inherited my dad’s Quest 3s. I still use it, because it’s the best form of exercise that I’ve found I can stick to, but I’d definitely love to jump ship from Meta as soon as I can.
Hoping that modding games on the Frame standalone is as easy as on the Steam Deck. I’ve been too unmotivated to do the SideQuest thing for custom Beat Saber songs so far.
Try moon rider. It’s a Web vr game that runs in the browser. Basically knock off beat sabre with 1000s of songs free.
Frame modding will almost certainly be identical to deck. I could see the arm builds of proton maybe not being able to run some of the injection type mods but even in that case I don’t think it would be long before it gets sorted. Someone with one of those android handheld consoles that can now do the deck thing should be able to test it beforehand but it might be too niche with the current amount of users of that specific setup.
SideQuest isn’t bad at all by the way. USB, a couple terminal commands, place the files.
It was the only way to play Pavlov for a long time. I had my best gaming moments in VR with that silly game.
Don’t be intimidated!
Same. If Valve can bring get streaming going and bring fully fledged x86 games to an arm headset, oh boy. Skyrim VR will be lit
I mean they cut out the middleman and you can just run x86 software on ARM with FEX (and by extension, windows-built games via proton).
I don’t see a future where a dedicated PC will become optional for the majority of PCVR titles, but I would imagine the wireless streaming tech valve’s already included into the headset should make it pretty painless if you’re already a PC gamer.
Can’t the frame run the game itself? I thought it’s a full fledged computer
Kinda. ARM isn’t great for high-power user cases, and the hardware in the frame isn’t top-end for the architecture.
The frame can run less intensive games, but will struggle with heavier games. I assume Skyrim VR will be in the latter category, especially with mods.
They say it’s “streaming first” but supports titels directly on it, too. Either way, I am hyped
It’s ARM-based, so x86 code will not run natively on it. But Steam has something similar to Proton for ARM.
You can already play Skyrim VR on older VR headsets, I have it. Had to add an ungodly amount of mods to get it more playable but there is a mod manager that simplifies it
I know, but i have a cable and cramped setup. I’love to stream it to the garden or something with a lighter headset
I’m hoping that it’ll be able to work well as a portable workstation for coding and whatnot.
I haven’t really tried it, but my Quest has an option to project a virtual keyboard onto a flat surface instead of just poking at the air. I could see something like that being helpful for coding or long-form typing.
I’ve used it and while it’s functional I wouldn’t want to use it long term. The feature that puts a passthrough cutout to see real keyboards is a lot better.
I hope they allow the oldest steam accounts to buy first. 17 years on steam…they should let me give them their money. Not scalpers.
17? Get back in line!
My current account is 17 years, but my long lost original account would have been 22 now. When I first made it was like “What is this bullshit? Why do I need to sign up for some crap just to browse servers for Counter Strike? And it’s running extra programs taking up precious system resources? This is just shittier Gamespy, and Gamespy isn’t even a thing anymore, there’s no way this will last”
I made an account begrudgingly and hooked it up to a “junk email” account that got lost somewhere in time.
Eventually Steam started selling games and linking them to your account and suddenly the value of the platform was apparent.
Hindsight is 20/20. Really wish I had that “22 Year” badge.
You’ll always have that badge for us
If I could trade in all my unplayed games I could afford a hundred Steam Machines.
I’m in the 20+ club, we should get priority!
I do think it’d be a cool idea to have a window that adds another year’s accounts every 10-20m or so. It shouldn’t be days, but 10-20m would be hours for older accounts before newer ones take over.
I’m away right now with very limited access to the internet. I’m going to be pissed if it comes out and I can’t buy one due to crappy internet.
Send me the money and I will get it for you
People have/buy old Steam accounts anyway, it wouldn’t really do a whole lot. The best way I can think of giving the stock to legit customers would be giving priority to people who have bought Valve hardware before and have verifiably used it on their account… but any account could be a scalper, anyone could choose to do it whenever.
Whatever system they use, some people will feel it is unfair. A queue system is easiest and most neutral, first come first serve, but still lets you guarantee a chance at some point. It negates scalping a bit, because there’s less value to scalp a device people are just queued for.
Honestly though, scalping isn’t as big of an issue as people think it is, especially on higher priced devices. Most of the devices you “missed out” on, are just bought by other legitimate customers, the demand is just high for these.
Just add a stipulation that it has to be an active account with some guidelines.
Yeah, keeping it simple is best. Im sure they could use their trust factor system if they really wanted. It just obviously isnt that big of a concern for them, the queue system is to mitigate people having to spam refresh Steam all day, not to stop scalpers.
Search ebay for steam controller my dude
It’s nothing compared to how many are actually sold.
Most are from Australia, so seems its one specific group there doing it. Ignoring them, the majority of listings are the original Steam Controller.
Scalping is always blown out of proportion because people are disappointed and upset they didnt get one. Yes it’s an issue, but you most likely missed out because of regular demand.
Are that many people going to buy old steam accounts just to buy this hardware? I can’t see that being a big thing either. I still think account age is the way to go here
No, but people who plan to do this, will set themselves up in that way.
As I mentioned, from a quick look on ebay, most of the scalped controllers are shipped from Australia, that tells me it’s one person or a group there conducting an operation. They will make sure they have as much chance as they can to buy, which means having old accounts, having them active, making purchases on them etc.
It’s not just one person deciding to do it on a whim most of the time, it’s completely preplanned.
Then they learn faster than the LA Olympics people. Seriously, those people are running a shit show for ticket sales at the moment.
It’s the same queue system they had set up for the Steam Deck. They just didn’t implement it for the controller because they didn’t expect it to sell so fast.
But go ahead with your Dunning-Kreuger fuelled rant. Surely it doesn’t say anything about you
Yea, a similar reservation queue is also now currently used for the Steam Controller, it’s not like they need to reinvent it every time.
Such a low bar for a “rant”
Good luck with things
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They already had one for the deck so no surprise there. Just change a couple lines of code or something.
my body is ready
I’m not sure if my wallet is. I wish they would announce the price so I know how much I’m going to give them.
They honestly need to add “played hours” too. I can imagine a bunch of scumbag scalpers creating accounts now in anticipation and buying $1 games just to get around this last requirement to reserve. I doubt they can or will play on any of these accounts they create.
Well, I hope so. That just seems like good planning to me.
I mean yeah that makes sense given what they saw happen to the new steam controller. They want the devices in the hands of people who want to actually use them, not some scalper who only cares to profit off of the hype.
Valve had limits in place for controller orders, like requiring an existing Steam account witb a purchase history. They just didn’t set up a queue.
And if you look, there doesn’t seem to be a huge number of scalpers. My guess it’s just a handful of people who got lucky, and decided they’d rather get $200-400 and wait longer for a controller for themselves
Nice. Hopefully this brings in a lot of new Linux gamers. It and the Steam Frame. I’m now leaning towards skipping the machine and getting a Frame. Assuming the Steam Machine is ~$1000 USD, I see a good amount of gaming laptops second hand that can match a Steam Machine and be placed under a TV
That’s a good way to cook a laptop.
