Wednesday, February 26th 2025
Valve "Deckard" VR Headset Touted to Launch Around Late 2025, with Speculative $1200 Price Point
A Valve-designed next-gen VR headset is a compelling prospect, but not many details have emerged online since the company's (2022) teasing of new developments. Press outlets noticed a September 2023 registration of a mysterious device in South Korea; following this discovery, many anticipated a steady flow of leaks. Relative silence ensued; brewing speculation that Valve Corporation had shelved another top secret project. Fast-forward to the present day; Gabe Follower—a self-confessed Valve/Half Life 3 tipster—believes that all systems are go for a codenamed "Deckard" VR headset. The amusingly-named leaker (referencing Gabe Newell) claims to have an inside track: "several people have confirmed that Valve is aiming to release new standalone, wireless VR headset (codename Deckard) by the end of 2025. The current price for the full bundle is set to be $1200. Including some "in-house" games (or demos) that are already done. Valve want to give the user the best possible experience without cutting any costs."
The "Index" was Valve's first attempt at cornering the VR gaming market, but the buying public (back in 2019) largely favored rival models. A long-gestating follow-up would need to really "hit it out of the park," when placed against a new generation of competing hardware. Valve's alleged Blade Runner-themed device, was linked to a set of previously leaked VR controllers; codenamed "Roy." Additionally, Gabe Follower reckons that Valve is prepared to make financial sacrifices, in order to establish a foothold within an extremely competitive market: "even at the current price, it will be sold at a loss. A few months ago, we saw leaked models of controllers—Roy—in the SteamVR update. It will be using the same SteamOS from Steam Deck, but adapted for virtual reality. One of the core features is the ability to play flat-screen games that are already playable on Steam Deck, but in VR on a big screen without a PC. The first behind closed doors presentations could start soon."
Sources:
Gabe Follower Tweet, Notebookcheck, Wccftech
The "Index" was Valve's first attempt at cornering the VR gaming market, but the buying public (back in 2019) largely favored rival models. A long-gestating follow-up would need to really "hit it out of the park," when placed against a new generation of competing hardware. Valve's alleged Blade Runner-themed device, was linked to a set of previously leaked VR controllers; codenamed "Roy." Additionally, Gabe Follower reckons that Valve is prepared to make financial sacrifices, in order to establish a foothold within an extremely competitive market: "even at the current price, it will be sold at a loss. A few months ago, we saw leaked models of controllers—Roy—in the SteamVR update. It will be using the same SteamOS from Steam Deck, but adapted for virtual reality. One of the core features is the ability to play flat-screen games that are already playable on Steam Deck, but in VR on a big screen without a PC. The first behind closed doors presentations could start soon."
26 Comments on Valve "Deckard" VR Headset Touted to Launch Around Late 2025, with Speculative $1200 Price Point
- OLED ~2500p eyes 144Hz
- 130° FoV vertical et 150° FoV horizontale (please god need a big FoV)
- Pancakes or something good like that
- Light, not bulky, comfortable
- DP 2.1
- Please a good encoding, decoding video
- Tracking inside-out
- Same controllers but with better battery
- Please an OS optimized like god
The $1,200 price tag pretty much tracks with inflation and you are getting several additional features like it being standalone and wireless. The only questions remain are how much they improved other factors.
Pipewire audio suites have horrible interactions with the VR compositor when CPU bound, attempting to start or stop the multiple handles associated with SteamVR in the wrong order (which cannot be controlled, AFAIK) runs the risk of blowing up your graphics driver (speaking from experience on Nvidia's 550 driver) and causing a system hang or causing a 307 error and requiring you to completely close SteamVR and Steam before trying again, and Proton is, well... Proton. Was a fun few months when the text shader for Blade & Sorcery would make the lore tidbits in Outposts nearly illegible unless you held it at an awkward angle.
In any case, if the rumors turn out to be true, $1200 is a painful price for accessible standalone VR, even if it's coming from the subject of my fanboy adulation. I wouldn't care if the displays and optics were hardly a step up from the Index—I genuinely believe people overblow its hangups—as long as it occupied the same price bracket of the Quest 3, because like it or not, even if Facebook is losing abhorrent amounts of money with each sale of a Quest headset, they have set the standard for entry level at $500, $300 if you consider the budget-oriented 3S/(formerly) Quest 2.
But hey. Maybe it's for the serious enthusiasts who need a crystal-clear look at their far-beyond-retina displays with all the tracking in the world so you can extract every extra millisecond from foveation and every bit of expressiveness in your choice of social VR space. And you know what, that'd appeal to me, but I'm a cheapskate so I'd be a very slow adopter.
Meta cancelled their own future high end VR headset to focus on the $500 segment, because that's what most people are buying.
$1,200 VR headset with (assuming) direct PC connection to leverage +$1,000 GPU is for the adults in the room.
Every pimax model is a brick in weight.
Also they've always had poor quality control and customer support. If the thing becomes a brick in functionality you'll be high and dry. You used to have some protection against that when they sold on Amazon, but they stopped that and started doing this thing where they'll sell you the headset, and then you have to pay for the software separately, to make refunds harder.
also that name is cool, I don't care if Valve changes the name, I'm going to keep calling it the Deckard
I like that they try many things, more than anyone else. But they're really bad at finishing what they start, and quality control...
Also I mourn for the lack of a 5k/8k successor. Flawed as they were, there is nothing that comes close to their FOV, and something that could with a much better lens would be an amazing thing.
Until microOLED can reach 110 horizontal or more and get brighter displays, then QLED with local dimming will be ideal IMO.
This is it guyz! This is when VR stops being a niche and goes mainstream!-Problem is there just aren't enough adults in the room for VR to hit critical mass, just keeps limping along in this perpetual state of limbo...
With price lowering over the years, the entertainment industry is on the verge of getting more and more AR/VR/MR attractions and that will introduce more and more people to itthough yeah, at that price... thank gosh for Pico and *eugh* Meta who make much more affordable -while still feature packed- HMDs, Pico's FBT tracking kit is really really cool and easy to use, I really hope to see more evolutions like this in the future !