Valve undertakes to ship the Steam engineits console-style PC and the Steam Frame VR headset this summer. The company confirmed this release window via a new post also sharing new details on how Valve is updating its Verified program for these new devices.
“Today we are expanding the Verified program to include Steam Machine and Steam Frame, both of which will ship this summer,” said Valve in a blog post on the official Steam website. The company behind games like Half-life And Portal provided no further details on exactly when the devices will ship or, more importantly, how much they will cost at launch.
Price will be a very important factor in the success of the Steam Machine (and the Steam Frame.) After Valve recently raised the price of its popular handheld, the Steam Deck, by over $200, many people are nervous about the cost of a Steam Machine. Valve claims that the Steam Machine is six times more powerful than a Steam Deck, which sounds good because it means more games can be played on it, but it also seems like it will be much more expensive than the Steam Deck. Steam Deck, which now costs almost $800 for the base OLED model.
The rest of the blog post is dedicated to Valve sharing details on how its Verified program, which shows people if a game is playable on Steam Deck via a green checkmark, will work on Steam Machine and Steam Frame.
No surprises here, as the program will work essentially the same way. The games will be tested by Valve, and if they pass, they will receive a green checkmark. Valve says that if a developer’s game didn’t perform well on Steam Deck, it will be checked again to see if it performs better on Steam Machine. If so, it will receive a Steam Machine Verified badge. The same process will happen for Steam Frame. Hopefully Valve is a little more careful in how they hand out green checkmarks.
That’s all well and good, but the real question is how much is the damn thing going to cost? Some believe that the The steam engine could cost $1,200 or more. This figure seems hard to believe, but if we take into account the persistent RAM shortages as well as other factors, the idea of a A $1,200 Steam Engine Not Only Sounds Plausiblebut perhaps the best case scenario. The price may be higher than that. Place your bets now, folks. And good luck there.
