Over the years, Valve has built up a loyal user base with Steam. There are folks (myself included) who have been using the platform since it debuted, all the way back when it was just an excuse to pick up Half-Life 2. Since then, they’ve turned that cottage industry into an empire, which eventually produced multiple pieces of hardware, including the new Steam Controller.

They aren’t stopping there, either. Another iteration of the Steam Deck is allegedly in the works, and Valve still needs to ship its new era of Steam Machines, along with another VR device. They’ve been extremely busy, and all eyes are on Valve to see what all of this is going to cost.

Over on X, Valve has provided an official update for Steam Controller stock, following the initial offering. There’s both good and bad news in Valve’s statement, and it could signal hardware distribution challenges going forward.

Directly after selling out of Steam Controllers on the only marketplace they were available on (Steam), here’s Valve’s official messaging: “Steam Controller ran out faster than we anticipated, and we hate that not everyone who wanted one was able to get it. We’re working on getting more in stock and will have an update on expected timeline soon.”

In other words, this isn’t meant to be a limited drop or something you’ll never be able to feasibly buy. The wording is a bit stronger than anticipated as well, regarding stock issues, which hopefully means that we’ll get a restock notice any day or week now.

After all, Valve spent years working on this technology, and want people to experience it. As they informed us in a recent interview:

“While it has been 11 years between the two Steam Controllers, we consider the Steam Deck (2022) as part of the family of controllers, so the gap between controllers is actually much shorter. Everything we learned from the first Steam Controller we put into the Steam Deck and then into the new Steam Controller. The Steam Deck really convinced us that we were ready for the new Steam Controller.”

Getting these units out to as many people as possible is the goal, but we’ll have to wait for an official update on how it all shakes out in the coming weeks. Maybe if more drops go similarly, they could extend invites directly to Steam users.

After the controller sold out instantly, “pre-sales” from scalpers started appearing on eBay for up to $300 (for reference, the controller costs $99 US). Ideally, these subsequent controller drops will implement more scalper protection.

While Valve is mum on the sales so far, things seem to be going well for the Steam Controller. We’ll likely get an updated number after a few waves have shipped.

Brand

Valve

Original Release Date

September 12, 2003