Valve: Steam Controller sold out immediately upon market launch
On Monday evening, Valve's Steam Controller was launched. Those who wanted to buy it needed luck and patience – the servers couldn't handle the rush.
(Image: Valve)
It has become good practice at Valve: with new hardware releases, the servers must buckle. What happened with the Steam Deck a few years ago could now also be observed with the Steam Controller. After it went on sale on Monday evening, massive disruptions occurred in the Steam Store, presumably due to high demand.
Today, Tuesday, the Steam Controller is sold out. Those who diligently hammered the “Continue” button in the store on Monday evening, reloaded the page at the right time, or were simply lucky, could order the new Steam gamepad – many others likely failed. The controller is currently listed as “Out of stock”. It is unclear how many devices Valve had in stock in Germany at all. According to media reports, the Steam Controllers were also quickly sold out in Valve's US home market.
Scalpers rejoice
The US gaming magazine PCGamer reports, for example, about scalpers who are now offering a Steam Controller for prices of up to 300 US dollars – at a purchase price of 100 euros. This phenomenon can also be observed in Germany: on classified ad sites, there are some users offering pre-ordered Steam Controllers. The prices asked range from 150 to 380 euros.
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The Steam Controller is the first and so far only product from Valve's new hardware line to be released. The VR headset Steam Frame and the SteamOS PC Steam Machine currently have no fixed release date. Both devices have been repeatedly postponed due to the chip shortage: it makes it difficult for manufacturers to obtain hardware components for building PCs and consoles at all. The prices to be paid are also extraordinarily high and involve great uncertainties. Valve has not yet announced prices for the Steam Machine and Steam Frame.
Valve imports “game consoles”
Meanwhile, the US tech magazine The Verge reports, based on import documents, that Valve has recently increased the import of “game consoles”. This could be the Steam Machine. However, Valve's handheld PC Steam Deck is also listed as a game console on these import documents. Therefore, it is not certain that the new imports are actually the Steam Machine yet. (dahe)
