Valve has confirmed that its wireless Steam Frame VR headset costs more than originally intended, blaming a global spike in RAM and storage prices that has affected manufacturers across the industry. Developers Jeremy Selan and Pierre-Loup Griffais said the company had aimed for a significantly more affordable device but "fought hard" just to reach the current price, underscoring how volatile component costs are now shaping consumer tech pricing well beyond Valve.

The Steam Frame was initially pitched as cheaper than Valve's earlier wired Index headset, which launched at $999, but it now costs more than that reference point. The headset can stream games wirelessly from a PC via Wi-Fi or a bundled 6GHz dongle, and runs less demanding titles independently thanks to a Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chip and 16GB of RAM, the same memory Valve says lets Half-Life: Alyx run natively on the device. Griffais said it was too late in development to redesign the product with less memory, and argued the pricing broadly tracks the wider market, noting Valve's Steam Machine console is similarly not pricier than a comparable PC.