Over on the Steam Frame subreddit, the top post at the time of writing is one declaring “this sub has lost its mind”. It follows this up by acknowledging that, with Valve not releasing Steam Frame preorders on July 27th as the subreddit previously thought, “Now most of the new posts are just brainrot, and I’m here for it. “
To take a step back a bit, users have suspected the Steam Frame, Valve’s upcoming VR headset, is ‘coming soon’ for a good while now. Valve confirmed it will release this summer at some point, and with weeks left in Summer, it’s likely to come out sooner rather than later. As well as this, we recently saw a new “Great on Frame” category on the Steam store, and tens of thousands of kilograms of VR headsets arrived in the US last month.
This sub has lost its mind from r/SteamFrame
Some sleuths have noted that Valve tends to announce on Mondays or Thursdays and also noted that it would make sense to launch Steam Frame preorders in between Steam Fests so it isn’t fighting for banner space on the Steam home page. That left them with the conclusion that Valve would announce preorders on July 9th or July 27th. Naturally, when it wasn’t announced on July 9th, July 27th became the last hope for a July release. But the Steam Sale launch theory doesn’t make much sense, as the Steam Controller seemed to have been announced and released during a Steam Fest.
There was, however, one more anticipated release date in between. Last week, one X user reported on an unverified screenshot claiming that the Steam Frame rollout would begin on July 24. The Steam Frame subreddit was pretty sceptical of this claim, but it still became a point of conversation and hope for some.
Over the entirety of July, users have been posting prayers, pleas, and potatoes of luck (don’t ask), in the hope that Valve would randomly announce the release date with little fanfare. As you might be able to guess, that hasn’t happened. However, the months of anticipation have gotten to the subreddit, and now users are using that as a chance to post just whatever they feel like, including gibberish and a whole pile of memes.
The tomfoolery of the Steam Frame subreddit has made its way over to the main Steam subreddit, where one post asks, “What’s currently going on in r/steamframe.” Yeah, I don’t really know either, but it’s fun to watch.
I got a strange message in the mail today, I think it’s a sign we’re getting the frame tomorrow. from r/SteamFrame
One comment says, “We’ve all collectively lost our minds. I sold my damn Quest 3 months ago for this thing, I’m jonesin’ for some VR.”
But there’s a deeper meaning behind some of this anticipation. The Steam Machine launched at a very high price point, so high in fact that it told us it wished it could sell the Machine for less. And Qualcomm has said it is planning to raise the price of its chips on September 1 (The Frame uses a Qualcomm chip), so some are worried that the Frame will be prohibitively expensive, and that’s before mentioning the 16 GB of LPDDR5X RAM in it.
Its today I swear from r/SteamFrame
If it launches right now, it would be launching before the Qualcomm price raise comes into effect. Naturally, one can assume that Valve has a stockpile of headsets ready to go for launch, and presumably contracts of supply in place, though that wouldn’t stop it from raising the price further down the line should it need to.
Many of those preordering a Steam Frame are preparing for the pain of that price, so they might as well get it out of the way early. And, obviously, the sooner the preorder, the sooner users will actually have their hands on the device.
But hey, maybe Valve will actually announce it today. It has no reason to do so, but that’s never stopped anyone from hoping.
