Valve’s long awaited steam controller launched yesterday at a $100/99€ and within 30 minutes it sold out… to noone’s surprise of course. This is part of the course for almost every new electronic hardware these days but especially for Valve, since its Steam deck; a highly popular handheld console for all things steam has been out of stock for months now with no new stock in sight.
Now who’s to blame for this are none other than scalpers flocking to the flavor of the month new hardware release to make a quick buck and leave nothing to actual customers. Third party sell sites such as Ebay already have listings for the Steam controller for an average of 220$ and going up to 250$,with also some fringe ones going for 300$. Also important to note, is that these listings are only selling the presale order confirmation and not the actual controller itself since the controllers haven’t even shipped out yet.
Valve hasnt commented as of yet when restocks are going to happen and usually they do their releases and restocks on the day of it with little to no warnings as they like to keep everything secret as much as possible. What has happened with the Steam controller is most definitely going to happen with the even more anticipated Steam machine; a small factor but powerful all in one gaming pc aiming to hit the market still in this year but due to RAM shortages, Valve has been having a hard time getting supply and at the same time keeping its price to comparable console price levels.
If only I had a crystal ball to tell me its release date all would be well but alas it wasnt in the cards for me and only time will tell what Valve will do about their future hardware releases concerning scalpers buying up all the stock in under one hour.