Valve Confirms the Index Is Discontinued and Clears Out Remaining Headsets at 20% Off, Starting at $399.20

By CriticalPixel · 2026-10-14

Valve has finally said it out loud: the Index is done. A Steam news item published this week confirms that Valve Index is no longer being produced, and the company is selling off whatever headsets, controllers and accessories are left at new prices while supplies last. PC Gamer's report on the clearance puts the headset at $399.20, down from the $499 it launched at in 2019, which is a flat 20% cut. PC Gamer notes this is the first official word from Valve on the matter, and it arrives as a markdown sticker rather than a farewell.

What the clearance actually includes

Here is the part that makes this a strange closeout. The $399.20 price is for the headset alone. Left controller replacements are listed at $119.20 and replacement tethers at $103.20, which tracks with the $149 and $129 prices Wario64 flagged on Steam before the 20% cut landed. There is no right controller on the list at all, and no base stations. The $999 package that bundled the headset with controllers and base stations is gone, so there is no discount on it because it no longer exists as an option. If you want the full kit, you are hunting for the missing pieces on the secondhand market, and Valve is not going to help you with that.

The "while supplies last" line matters more than the discount does. Valve will not make another Index, and it has not said how many units are sitting in a warehouse. PC Gamer's advice is blunt: if you want one, perhaps as a collectible, move fast. For people who already own an Index, Steam's own page says nothing changes. The headset keeps working with Steam and SteamVR, and support stays available through Steam Support.

How the Index got here

None of this is a surprise if you were paying attention. Back in November 2025, Valve designer Lawrence Yang told The Verge that the company was no longer manufacturing the Index, right as Valve was unveiling the Steam Frame. That is roughly eleven months of an out-of-production headset sitting at full price before Valve bothered to say so officially. The Index was a tethered, base-station-tracked PC headset with 1,440 by 1,600 pixels per eye and refresh rates up to 144 Hz, and it was never going to survive a market that moved to standalone headsets. The Frame jumps to 2,160 by 2,160 per eye, streams wirelessly over a 6GHz adapter and can run Windows games locally on an Arm chip.

The replacement is not cheap, and that is where the Index clearance gets interesting. PC Gamer's Steam Frame review says the headset starts at $1,059 for the 256 GB model, and the reviewer notes that nobody they spoke to, Valve employees included, has much positive to say about that number. The memory crisis gets the blame, the same way it hit the Steam Machine. The review still calls the Frame a great way to play VR, but it also admits the Quest 3 is a lot cheaper and that the Frame's displays are nothing special. So the cheap, discontinued tethered headset suddenly looks a lot more tempting next to a $1,059 successor, even with its missing parts.

Steam Frame VR headset seen from the front against a white background, showing its lenses and clear housing

What people are saying

Reaction under Wario64's post is a small sample, so take it as a mood and not a verdict. It splits three ways. Some replies are pure nostalgia, with one user writing "We had a good run Valve Index. You will be missed." and hoping Valve re-releases the Index controllers in a Frame-compatible version, since they find the Frame controllers awkward. Others are skeptical about value, with one asking "Isn't the Quest 3 not much more and significantly better?". And a few were simply confused by the pricing list, because a left controller with its own price and no right one looks like a joke the first time you read it.

The CriticalPixel take

Valve is doing the right thing by marking the stock down and saying plainly that the Index is finished, but the execution is sloppy. Listing a headset and a left controller with no right controller and no base stations means a newcomer can spend $399.20 and still own a paperweight until they find the rest elsewhere. A clearance that cannot be bought as a working system is not much of a clearance. The people who will actually get value here are existing Index owners topping up a dead tether or a broken left controller, and collectors who want the box on a shelf.

If you are shopping for VR in 2026, the Index at this price only makes sense when you already own base stations and Knuckles controllers, or you are happy to chase them used. Everyone else is better served by weighing the Frame against a Quest 3 and deciding whether $1,059 is worth the SteamOS convenience. The Index was the best headset money could buy when it landed in April 2019, and PC Gamer's review said as much back then. It is a decent send-off for a great product, as long as you read the fine print before you click buy.