Valve’s next headset has entered mass production and will ship this year, a Chinese analyst group claims.
The group, which calls itself XR Research Institute, claims that the launch is set for the holiday season, and estimates a production run of 400,000 to 600,000 units per year.
For comparison, that’s roughly the production scale of Apple Vision Pro. Meanwhile, 2.5 million people have unlocked the achievement for completing the Quest 3 and Quest 3S introductory mixed reality experience after two years, and Quest 2 sold north of 20 million units over four years.
As another point of comparison, estimates peg Steam Deck at around 5 million units after almost four years.
This suggests that, assuming XR Research Institute’s estimate is accurate, the headset will be priced relatively high – perhaps $1000 or higher.
Valve Deckard ‘Roy’ Controller Models Discovered In SteamVR
Models of Valve Deckard’s ‘Roy’ controllers were discovered in SteamVR driver files, revealing their design and inputs.
That Valve is working on a new headset is not merely a rumor. Over the past four years the company has repeatedly confirmed it, strongly hinting that it will have a focus on wireless streaming from your PC. In this time, many references to a Valve headset called “Deckard” have been found in the code of SteamVR, and Touch-like “Roy” controller models were discovered late last year.
Last month Valve applied for a trademark on the term “Steam Frame”, which dataminers have also discovered throughout SteamVR code, strongly suggesting that this could be the product name for Deckard.
We’ll continue to keep a close eye on leakers, dataminers, and Valve itself for any further hints of what might be the imminent reveal of the most anticipated VR headset in the industry.
Valve’s New Headset Design Is “Amazing”, Lynx Founder Says
The founder of Lynx says that the design of Valve’s next headset, codenamed Deckard, “is quite amazing”.
This article was originally published on uploadvr.com
