I wonder if they might be able to add hand tracking later, since they’ve already got the cameras that’d to the tracking?
VR proper content
Like what? If it’s a full blown desktop environment with steamVR, isn’t that as VR proper as it gets? 🤔 not being critical, trying to get what you mean! 🙂
no hardware upgrade
As for GPU/CPU upgrades, I think if you wanna do heavy VR games like alyx it makes sense to stream from its dedicated dongle, no? Also they’ve talked about the ability to upgrade lenses and headstrap-audio and other stuff - so, besides the main board, it is actually sorta upgradable! 🙂
Technically speaking hand tracking can be done with just computer vision, no dedicated tracking (like Leap Motion) required even though it’s typical better. So yes, it could be done but there is not promise of it so it’d be a risky bet.
VR proper content like Half-life: Alyx, here my comment is about producing content, not using the existing Steam catalogue. I love Alyx, I need more. If I get another headsets (I have several) but nothing amazing to put on it, “just” the usual then I’m not as excited.
I did stream, actually Alyx in 2020 (half a decade ago!) via Alvr https://twitter-archive.benetou.fr/utopiah/status/1243659207783649281/ so… that’s definitely feasible, definitely not new. It’s a good principle and if it helps keep the device price low, in fact VERY low, then it’s great. If it’s still relatively expensive then it won’t feel great to buy a device in 2026 with specs comparable to something that was out few years priors even if in practice it might be “good enough” standalone with some specific games. The Steam Deck didn’t really have that problem because there was no real alternatives. Here I’d argue it’s a bit different with Quest, Pico, Lynx but also higher ends like Vision Pro (which you can stream Steam games to, as I did also last year) or the newer Samsung Galaxy XR.
Regarding updates… yes, in theory, in practice I best most of use don’t have accessories for our Index “Frunk”. AFAICT also most people didn’t upgrade their Deck but rather bought the newer model. They do hint at quite a few upgrades or modules in the video though. Love to see how repairable it will be and no doubt it should be way better than most alternatives!
I wonder if they might be able to add hand tracking later, since they’ve already got the cameras that’d to the tracking?
Technically speaking hand tracking can be done with just computer vision, no dedicated tracking (like Leap Motion) required even though it’s typical better. So yes, it could be done but there is not promise of it so it’d be a risky bet.
VR proper content like Half-life: Alyx, here my comment is about producing content, not using the existing Steam catalogue. I love Alyx, I need more. If I get another headsets (I have several) but nothing amazing to put on it, “just” the usual then I’m not as excited.
I did stream, actually Alyx in 2020 (half a decade ago!) via Alvr https://twitter-archive.benetou.fr/utopiah/status/1243659207783649281/ so… that’s definitely feasible, definitely not new. It’s a good principle and if it helps keep the device price low, in fact VERY low, then it’s great. If it’s still relatively expensive then it won’t feel great to buy a device in 2026 with specs comparable to something that was out few years priors even if in practice it might be “good enough” standalone with some specific games. The Steam Deck didn’t really have that problem because there was no real alternatives. Here I’d argue it’s a bit different with Quest, Pico, Lynx but also higher ends like Vision Pro (which you can stream Steam games to, as I did also last year) or the newer Samsung Galaxy XR.
Regarding updates… yes, in theory, in practice I best most of use don’t have accessories for our Index “Frunk”. AFAICT also most people didn’t upgrade their Deck but rather bought the newer model. They do hint at quite a few upgrades or modules in the video though. Love to see how repairable it will be and no doubt it should be way better than most alternatives!