The Steam Controller looks to be a pretty great controller. If it weren’t for its restriction of only being usable with Steam out of the box, it would be only a mild exaggeration to say that it’s perfect. Perhaps because of that, and Valve not being a company known for producing much that’s physical, means that demand has overwhelmed supply. It’s to the point that the company says new orders may only arrive in 2027.
Valve says in a Steam news post that, for markets that could get the controller straight from the company, customers will be shown one of three estimated order windows. One is September 2026, followed by December 2026, followed by just 2027, though more specifics will follow for this one. Placing a new order now will probably lead to you seeing that last one more often than not.
For those successful, Valve says that it will be emailing customers with the option to buy it once their turn comes up. If they don’t commit to making the purchase, you will be booted from the queue, and will have to make another reservation, ending up at the end of the queue. So those who have made their reservations will have to be pretty on the ball with their emails.
The company has said that it had “(hopefully) cut down on the headache on the customer side” when it switched to a reservation system for the Steam Controller early on. This presumably refers to reducing the number of scalpers for the item. But a shortage is commonly taken advantage of by such individuals, so it remains to be seen if any pop up over the coming months. Valve not having an official presence locally also means that it’s very unlikely that we see the premium for prices on our shores getting lowered.
(Source: Steam)
