We've sort-of known for a while that Valve were working towards a next-generation VR headset to succeed the Valve Index and we've now seen a lot more supporting evidence that it's getting closer.
Plenty of this is thanks to the tireless work of XR Hardware Analyst Brad Lynch, who had been keeping an eye out for anything interesting that pops up. The codename of the device appears to be "Deckard", and a lot of the information is actually thanks to SteamDB who constantly track updates to Steam code on their GitHub where you can see a lot of the text strings being added in preparation.
You can see Lynch go over plenty of the leaked info in the below video:
Direct Link
As a huge fan of the Valve Index, which I took a look at some time ago, the idea that we might be able to play without wires hooked up to a PC is thoroughly exciting. Even more exciting, is that it's quite likely in any standalone mode that it would use Linux, which is again a good reason for Valve to continue working on Proton outside of the use on the Steam Deck.
Then there's also the recent Patent, which shows off a possible new design of Valve's upcoming VR headset. The patent was filed in December 2021, and went public on June 16 2022. The patent is focused more on the fitting with the strap system, rather than going into technical details on how it will function. Still, we do get a little hint as to what it may have with the patent mentioning "the rear housing may house wireless transceivers, a battery, microphones, input/output devices, processors" and it also mentions the front may have "antenna(s)" and a few other references that do indicate wireless play.
Obviously it's not a confirmation that one will actually be released but still fun to see and clearly Valve are working on something big.
Valve has done a great job with the Deck... fingers crossed they can pull off another success story with their next VR HMD.
Very interested in VR since the Oculus announcement, but so far haven't bought anything since it isn't good enough yet visually.
Did try the Index at my cousin, and although fun, the whole cable mess was a downer.
And the Facebook headsets are a no-go obviously.
Last edited by Sojiro84 on 21 June 2022 at 1:19 pm UTC
Curious to see the specs on the screen etc.
Very interested in VR since the Oculus announcement, but so far haven't bought anything since it isn't good enough yet visually.
Did try the Index at my cousin, and although fun, the whole cable mess was a downer.
I great you'll have to choose between cables and low res.
Which makes me think... A standalone device, pluggable for high-end graphics...?
i hope that dont split the atention of their fans between two productsI wouldn't worry too much about that - they're for two different market segments, as far as I can tell, since one product isn't an alternative for the other.
Although for the latter the 4000/7000 GPUs would need to perform considerably better than expected to really be practical ^^
Philadelphus Jun 21, 2022
Last edited by Philadelphus on 22 June 2022 at 6:13 pm UTC
Oh, "Deckard" is the code name…thought Valve was going for a theme for their hardware products, and was looking forward to the Valve Deck-orator, A-deck-t, and Fana-deck.Aaarggghhhh!!!! Somebody deck this guy.
Patreon
PayPal
See more from me