For me a lot of the value comes from the freedom you get with frame. Valve says “it’s your PC, install what you want” and it runs an open source OS. It’s the first truly Linux friendly headset (it runs arch btw) and I don’t have to send my data to Meta. Also foveated streaming means, according to reviewers, a pretty decent wireless PCVR experience. I can’t wait to play half life Alyx without a tether. Valve is just doing something very different from meta.

It's a compelling product niche, for sure - but still, awfully niche. I'm sure there's folks out there who will bite on the chance to have a top-line VR headset with Linux, but at the price point... gotta be a fairly small market segment.

Still, I'm happy they're doing this, it seems like a cool product and I bet it would be almost as much fun as a platform to hack around on as it will be for gaming.

Yeah, I've been Linux-only on the desktop since the early aughts and trying to get the Valve Index working was so frustrating and inconsistent I eventually gave up. It sits collecting dust and I've still never played more than the first fifteen minutes of HL: Alyx (because no game is worth installing Windows for).

Very much looking forward to maybe actually being able to use VR on my gaming computer.