Agree that $1000 for 'console'+hmd all in would be a better price point to hit. Really tricky to do that though. To break down my quest 3 + ps5 comment on BOM:
The HMD needs to have stand alone processing to be wireless. Camera+arm soc+battery make it a Quest 3 really, with eye tracking costs on top.
The console needs to run Alyx well, at a minimum. Suggests a PS5 like SoC?
I forgot controller costs! Meta are being cheap/clever with the Quest 3 controllers. They've ditched the tracking ring. It's essentially hand tracking with imu support. We'll see how well that works in practice, but not sure Valve could emulate that saving.
On the hybrid tracking thing, no sure how much use it is? Camera tracking can be good enough these days. They could put a lighthouse base station inside the console. Adds to cost though.
My pure speculation at this point is that this console+hmd won't be sold separately. They'll pitch it as a new class of performance standalone wireless PCVR, same as the Deck being a (sortof) new class of portable PC.
$1000 would put it right in the PS5+PSVR2 bracket. Not sure how many people are actually buying that as a bundle.
we already know the steam deck broke even at $400 over a year ago. Remove the screen and battery and you should be closer to $300. I don't really see adding in a more powerful apu driving those costs up much if at all a year or almost 2 years later. So if we factor in sub $400 for the console part you'd still have about $600 to play with in regards to the headset and controllers.
I'd wager for the SOC they can just get away with the 7000 series amd apu's or depending on timing maybe the 8000 series apu.
The ally does a decent job playing alyx. Factor in some faster ram , not having to worry about throttling ( the console should have more robust cooling than a handheld) Also you'd have a steam os instead of regular windows 11 and the oculus software on top of that.
Of course Valve could go with a custom soc with more cu's or like I said they could end up with the 8000 series apu. I believe 2024 would give us zen 5 apu's and who knows what on the graphics side.
THe ROG ally specs are as follows
| Processor | AMD Ryzen™ Z1 Extreme Processor | AMD Ryzen Z1 |
| CPU | Zen 4 architecture, 8-core /16-threads, 24MB total cache, up to 5.10Ghz boost |
| GPU | 12 RDNA3 CUs, up to 2.7GHz, 8.6 TFLOP, default 4GB RAM capacity |
| APU Power | 9-30W |
So moving to a zen 5 + a refreshed rdna 3 or even just moving to 20 cus well then you basically have a series s at that point. Heck if you move to 20 RDNA 3 cu's and are able to clock them at 3ghz in the console you'd not only match the 20 cu rdna 2 in the series s but you'd be running them at twice the clock speed. The main issue would be ram bandwidth.
The other thing would be giving users an option. Bundle the headset/controllers/console or an option for the headset/ controllers if you have a powerful enough pc. I think valve limiting it to this special console or steam machine would hurt them more than it would help them. There are plenty of people who want to be able to pour more money into their computers to get the best vr experience. The steam machine would just be wasted money. What's more is if they want to also have a steam deck or steam deck 2 able to connect to this. What if you don't want to console experience but instead the handheld one ? The index still continues to sell well at $1000 and I believe launched june of 2019.
As for tracking , nothing comes close to light house tracking. I have had a 4 camera oculus set up and i have used all the quests including the pro . The 2 light house set up has been able to keep up with all of them. I had upgraded to a 3 light house set up and I have never had a tracking issue even in alyx if i put my hands through my legs everything gets tracked right. I could only imagine how having camera tracking on the headset combined with light houses would take that to the next level
