Any reason for not use any other computer or maybe, build one yourself?

If you build one yourself, you assemble all the components you ordered and try to power it up, nothing. What do you do?

Assuming you know how to find out why in a reasonable amount of time, good luck getting replacements because companies make it very difficult when it comes to warranty claims. Some will ship you something that's broken and tell you to prove that you didn't break it.

Hard pass. I could hire a local repair shop to build one for me but how much would that cost? On top of that it would have to be done with older tech that's backwards compatible, which I assume is in demand and not cheap.

Hard pass.

I trust Gamers Nexus and seriously doubt they'd partner with Steam if they didn't have confidence in it's design, but the availability is questionable going forward.

What other options are there at present given the fact that brand names mean nothing?

And the final piece is (kinda) out now - the Steam Frame, the new VR headset. As we already know, this is a direct competitor to the Meta Quest, following very much the same model. It can be used both as a standalone headset and wirelessly connected to a PC running Steam. So, no really big surprises here.

Again, as with the Steam Machine, you are currently just putting yourself on a list to reserve one, seems like the date it is out is 17th September.

If you look at the headset purely as a standalone device, it does beat the Quest 3 in terms of hardware, which is fair enough considering it is designed to run PC VR games, while the Quest 3 runs… well... Quest games.

The actual specs are:

4 nm Snapdragon® 8 Gen 3 - ARM64
16GB Unified LPDDR5X RAM
256GB UFS storage, microSD card slot
Rechargeable 21.6 Wh Li-ion battery
2160 x 2160 LCD (per eye)
72-144Hz refresh rate (144Hz experimental)

The price is...ooffff.... it comes in two versions:
256GB for £889 / $1059
1TB for £1089 / $1299

Just to compare Meta Quest 3 (512GB) is £545 / $599, so Steam Frame is considerable more.

Link to the thing - https://store.steampowered.com/hardware/steamframe

edit - Linus Tech Tips review: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3PGKMwgjla0

Indeed, but consider that Index Kit was 1080€, and meta subsidizes the device as it gets your soul in return (jk).

To me is a "hold" and see how it grows - as a i did for the Deck and only jumped in after its more mature.

1250€ shocks only for not including more games, but there are still very few great VR experiences that would justify the cost (even if it was 300€ would still think the same).

Aye. The Quest is subsidised by Meta, that is not exactly a secret. Then you also have to factor in the increased hardware costs we have seen over the last year, so the price was somewhat expected. I was actually worried it might be a little higher. So while the price is definitely oooffff, it was not really unexpected.

But then you also have to add into the mix some accessories that seem almost like must-haves, such as the ergonomic pack, which includes the strap that goes over your head and the loops for the controllers. That pushes the price up a little more. Of course, you have much the same situation with the Quest and its accessories, so again… in two minds...

VR reminds me a lot of the 3D movies that hollywood tried to make it a "thing" (i.e. mass adoption)

Am not a brilliant business guru, its just the same models being applied as its entretainment after all.

This always make me smile....House of Wax (1953) - one of the first instances of pitching 3D as a "thing" eheheh

I guess 2026 is not the year of (general adoption) of Iinux nor VR :)

VR is still a bit niche, yes, but it has been growing. I just checked the tags on Steam, and right now they list around 5,000 games as "VR Only" and another 6,000 as "VR Supported", so that's roughly 11,000 games with some form of VR support. Of course, we can apply Sturgeon's law and say that 90% of it is crap, but that would still leave us with about 1,000 good-ish VR games. And among those are some really excellent games, including quite a few that are VR-only (such as Half-Life: Alyx, Boneworks, Pistol Whip, Walking Dead: Saints and Sinners, Moss Book 1 and 2, Walkabout minigolf and so on). So while VR remains a niche, that niche has expanded considerably.

And I think the success of the Quest has been both a blessing and a curse for VR gaming. On the one hand, it made VR considerably cheaper, simpler and more accessible. But on the other hand, the success of the Quest has also meant that a lot of VR development had to fit Quest hardware (which is essentially a glorified mobile) and that inevitably places limits on what developers can reasonably do, since that became the largest market. And then, of course, you have the walled garden that is Meta's Meta Store and all the other... crap... that Meta brings along with it...

No doubt, but that would still be a bit of pricey venture for a fishing expedition. Eventually will give it a spin, thats for sure, but am more interested on the next AMD APU for my GBOX (PC that runs on a 8700G just with GOG games via bazzite).
(instead of the steam machine will stick to my GBOX with a new APU that should be more than fine for when i decide to go VR)-

context: before knowing Machine's price considered not upgrading the GBOX, but with the Machine above 1k, i prefer to spend it on the next APU which will still be AM5 and use give the 32GB RAM = Steam's high price actually serves me well.