This fake VR Valve headset almost fooled everyone


Some clever people had fun creating a fake website on which the Valve Prism VR headset is shown. Except the product doesn’t exist, the company confirmed.

Does the media noise generated by the Apple Vision Pro give ideas to smart people looking for buzz? In any case, some believed in the imminent arrival of a new virtual reality headset from Valve and called Prism. The joke, spotted by PC Gamer on February 15, 2024, is still visible at this address. We discover an apparently credible website, with Valve’s aesthetic codes. The media were fooled, like The Verge.

The Valve Prism, which would have joined the Valve Index in the company’s hardware catalog, relied on features that were too good to be true. We were still talking about micro-OLED screens with a definition of 3,840 x 3,552 pixels per eye – an experience close to the Apple Vision Pro. To this feature would have been added tracking of the eyes, but also of the face on 50 points (lips, cheeks, teeth and tongue) and of the body. All powered by an AMD chip similar to what is found in the Steam Deck.

A fake Valve product to try to fool everyone

β€œ The Valve Prism is a full-fledged PC that can run your VR games whenever you want. Games can run locally on your Prism or stream from your PC Β», promised the creators of this gag which could probably have waited until April 1st.

If Valve quickly denied it, it was enough to look at certain details to avoid falling into the trap:

  • The processor from the Steam Deck is not powerful enough to run virtual reality games correctly, especially given the promises made.
  • The announced prices ($1,299 for the 512 GB version, $1,499 for the 1 TB version) seem low for a standalone headset with high-end screens and cutting-edge technologies.
  • In the copyrights section, the name β€œValve” is written with the capital letter β€œi” rather than an β€œl” (the illusion is perfect).
  • The domain name was registered very recently with the Cloudflare solution, which Valve does not use.
Fake Valve Prism headset // Source: Screenshot
Fake Valve Prism helmet. // Source: Screenshot

Where does the joke come from? Maybe from the furry community. In December, Brad Lynch, a content creator, tweeted a photo showing stickers collected at the Midwest Furfest convention (held in Illinois). It mentions the arrival of a Valve Deckard headset on February 14, 2024 – precisely the date on which the Valve Prism page appeared. We even saw montages incorporating the fake helmet on the official Steam pagefrom a member of the community.

Montage with the fake Valve headset on the Steam page // Source: Twitter ZexisZexcMontage with the fake Valve headset on the Steam page // Source: Twitter ZexisZexc
Montage with the fake Valve headset on the Steam page. // Source : Twitter ZexisZexc

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