Valve is making a virtual reality headset
Valve announced the news in a Steam blog post, promising to offer demos of a "previously unannounced SteamVR hardware system" along with the final version of its popular Steam controller and "new living devices."
Steam is bringing the best games and user-generated content to exciting new destinations. At GDC 2015, we'll be giving demos of the refined Steam Controller, new living room devices, and a previously-unannounced SteamVR hardware system.
With the introduction of SteamVR hardware, Valve is actively seeking VR content creators. Are you a developer or publisher interested in experiencing the new SteamVR hardware? We'll be giving scheduled VR demos during the week of GDC, March 4th-6th, 2015, at Moscone Center in San Francisco.
Steam, which is basically an app store for PC and Mac games that's bundled into a social platform, has been dabbling in virtual reality for some time now. It showed off an internal prototype of a virtual reality headset that used two Samsung Galaxy S4 displays last June at a virtual reality event in Boston - though at the time, Steam was quick to be clear that it was for testing purposes only.
Valve has since created a section of its Steam Store for virtual reality games, and the company has been a vocal supporter of Oculus VR and its highly anticipated Oculus Rift, which Facebook acquired for $2 billion last March.
While introducing its own VR headset could be seen as entering into competition with Oculus, Valve's reluctance to sell hardware in the past and its request for "VR content creators" hints that Steam is primarily concerned with getting developers interested in creating games for virtual reality.