Valve Steam Frame Could Get Another Price Increase Before It’s Even Launched, Thanks to a New Inbound Qualcomm Snapdragon Price Hike

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By Peter Brosdahl

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Image: Valve

Valve has yet to reveal a price for its VR headset, but the yet another component for the Steam Frame is about to cost more, meaning the manufacturer may have to reconsider its MSRP. To say that Valve may’ve picked the worst time for new hardware launches could be an understatement, but it could also be said that it should’ve done a better job of securing supplies before announcing its new family of devices. The rampocaylpse continues to wreak havoc on the electronics industry, with near-weekly price hikes becoming the new norm. It’s been known for some time that Valve delayed releasing both the Steam Machine and Steam Frame due to supply issues such as memory and storage costs, but now it seems that the Steam Frame will have another component cost to add, namely its Snapdragon processor.

Powered by the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 processor, the Steam Frame is reliant on Qualcomm’s popular mobile solution but also features 16GB LPDDR5X RAM along with either 256GB or 1TB of storage. MSRP for the Steam Frame has not been announced but after the hefty price tags for the various Steam Machine packages, many are beginning to get nervous as to what it will be. Meanwhile, to make matters worse, it’s been reported that Qualcomm intends to raise prices to its customers for Snapdragon by double-digit percentages as of September 1.

No, it’s entirely possible that Valve will launch the Steam Frame at whatever its last decided-upon price was. However, given the expected demand for the wireless VR headset, which can be used as a standalone gaming device, it will likely sell out at launch, thus making it very probable that Valve would increase prices for the next round of shipments.

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Peter Brosdahl
As a child of the 70’s I was part of the many who became enthralled by the video arcade invasion of the 1980’s. Saving money from various odd jobs I purchased my first computer from a friend of my dad, a used Atari 400, around 1982. Eventually it would end up being a lifelong passion of upgrading and modifying equipment that, of course, led into a career in IT support.

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