Valve’s Steam Controller is already quite expensive, but some people are willing to pay twice as much for it now that it’s sold out.
Yesterday (aside from being Star Wars Day) marked the launch of the new Steam Controller, which Valve oddly decided not to name any differently from the original Steam Controller from 2015.
For whatever reason, Valve didn’t open the controller up for pre-order either, so it was very much first come, first served once it became available for purchase on Valve’s website.
As expected, supply has not met demand and at the time of writing, the controller is out of stock. Even less surprising is that listings with much higher price tags for it have appeared on eBay.
Valve is selling the Steam Controller for £85, making it more expensive than standard PlayStation 5 and Xbox controllers, but you can easily find people selling it for almost double that on eBay, with listings at around £148 for brand new, unopened Steam Controllers.
One seller put their controller up for auction at a starting price of £125, but people are so desperate to own one that it’s risen to over £700.
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This is in spite of the Steam subreddit’s efforts to encourage people not to purchase Steam Controllers from scalpers and just exercise some patience. ‘I knew this was going to happen and they can keep their controller. … I will never let scalpers win,’ says Saikyon.
MongooseDirect2477 is concerned this will repeat with the Steam Frame and Steam Machine when they launch, while Slick424 is just confused over why Valve didn’t use a pre-order system like it did with the Steam Deck handheld.
Valve may not care either way since it’s still making money no matter who’s buying the Steam Controller. In fact, despite the limited stock, the controller is currently Steam’s top seller, outperforming popular video games and pre-orders for Forza Horizon 6.
However, Valve has acknowledged that the controller ‘ran out faster than we anticipated’ and has promised it’s ‘working on getting more in stock and will have an update on expected timeline soon.’
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Valve has yet to share release dates for the Steam Frame and Steam Machine, although the current plan is before the end of June, barring any last minute delays.
It is suspected Valve will meet that deadline as it has recently imported 50 tons of ‘game consoles’ according to documents seen by The Verge, which can be assumed to be referring to the Steam Machine.
The Verge estimates that that’s only 20,000 Steam Machines at most, given a single device weighs 2.6kg, so there’s unfortunately a very real possibility the Steam Machine will quickly sell out upon launch as well and, unless Valve takes precautions, also become popular among scalpers.
Although there’s no pricing yet, Valve have said that the Steam Machine will be more expensive than a traditional console, but how much more is a mystery – especially given the ongoing RAM memory crisis.
That may make it a more niche purchase but if the fans know, months before anything goes on sale, that there will be problems with scalpers then Valve should do too. If there’s no pre-orders for the Steam Machine either that will effectively be a slap in the face to long term fans, and a boon to scalpers.
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