If Valve releases their HMD this year is it going to be a VERY different beast than has been built up in everyone’s head by somebody doing patent diving. Or it’s going to be absurdly expensive and well over what people hope/expect. Or both.
Valve is somebody who works on their own time, they are a private company who is beholden to nobody but their own whims and wants. They have zero need to release something unless they want too, compared to public companies that have to keep in mind “We need to make X or else our shareholders will kill us”. They could work on something and have it mostly done, but if it doesn’t end up meeting their standards, they’ll scrap it too. Anyone who’s followed, well, any products should know that patents=/=the actual product. The actual product often differs quite a bit from what’re in the patents.
Frankly, at this point I do find beating the drum of “DECKARD IS COMING SOON!” to be similar to how people say “Apple is going to reveal their headset at X!” and have been for what, almost 2 years? Maybe a bit less? Despite nothing to show for it. It doesn’t mean they’re not working on it, but stuff takes time.
Things like MicroOLED and pancake lenses are still in their infancy and we got some growing pains with them, from either limitations we’re still working on, potentially quite low yields or the simple extreme cost. And Valve does not strike me as the company who’s going to jump onto something new just because it’s there, they seem more like the kind who wanna release something that’s actually quite a jump and not just “Index but higher res screens lol”.
Look at what happened when companies like Arpara tried to jump at being the first to market with MicroOLED, there were some real problems, particularly with brightness. And the MeganeX seems like it has had opinions turn against it, especially since it’s got such a massive price increase now. And then Pimax themselves even mentioned how using OLED(Sounded like normal, not even microOLED) would’ve added a decent chunk to the Crystal’s pricetag, which seems entirely credible to me given how few HMDs are using it and the crazy cost of the MeganeX, alongside OLED costing more in general on monitors.
Valve is obviously working on something and will most certainly come out with something someday, but I think people who expect it this year(Or it to at least live up to the hype expectations built up. Absolutely 0 chance of Varifocals this year, for example) are gonna be a bit disappointed.