bruh/a1ba@a1ba@suya.place
one might think that they are not "The Hardware" company to refresh their line up every year or two but I should remind you it's not their first time making it: they already produced steam deck oled, the original lcd version, valve index and even OG steam controller a decade ago. htc vive I think should be included in this list as well, even though it was a joint effort with htc
bruh/a1ba@a1ba@suya.place
valve time or rather their perfectionism is actively working against their hardware

they took a lot of time working on steam machine and steam frame and now steam machine not only feels a bit dated, also thanks to memory crisis the price is just straight up unacceptable.

steam frame was in development for years and now except for the few VR enthusiasts out there it doesn't look very promising

valve also actively refused to make an upgraded version of steam deck but now because of the crisis who knows when it will come out and whether it could hit the same price target as the original steam deck at all

people seem to blame valve for the high prices of their hardware despite the culprit of the whole situation is obvious. but I personally think the main problem here is that the time of actually affordable electronic components was just wasted for god knows what.
Maestra Fénix@maestrafenix@chaos.social

Replying to @⁨a1ba@suya.place⁩

@a1ba the Deck has already been upgraded a couple of times, especially with the OLED version. A Deck 2 isn't coming anytime soon because there's no revolutionary tech to justify a big step yet

The Machine was nice with the actual specs and price that was supposed to have. A more powerful thingy than the Deck, for anyone who wanted an easy to use PC. But the AI apocalypse ruined it all

As for the Frame... this is the 2nd time they tried to revive VR, only to be thwarted by external factors...

bruh/a1ba@a1ba@suya.place

Replying to @⁨maestrafenix@chaos.social⁩

@maestrafenix yet it's not a problem for other companies to try make steam deck competitors on newer hardware.

The "we're not gonna make Deck 2 because no revolutionary tech", i.e. delaying their own products, is exactly the thing that put Valve in it's current situation.
Edited ⁨⁨Aug⁩ ⁨23⁩, ⁨2026⁩, ⁨16:25⁩⁩en
bruh/a1ba@a1ba@suya.place
edited

Replying to @⁨maestrafenix@chaos.social⁩

@maestrafenix ergonomics is not something impossible to work on regardless of the tech.

As for hardware performance competitors aren't really that worse in terms of the battery life, as the original Deck isn't that good either. The personal best was letting it run for 6 hours, but that was me reading visual novel on the engine that doesn't render at screen refresh rate. For action 3D games of past decade it's always been around 3 hours, right now it's more 2, but sure, mine is just slowly aging.

In terms of pricing, alternatives don't have the whole Steam behind them, but this point doesn't make sense in 2026 because everything costs a lot and who knows when it's gonna normalize, if not become a new norm.

As I said in another reply my point is that they let themselves to wait too much, and here we are, with very limited options.