Valve says demand for its new PC controller has exceeded expectations
While Steam customers patiently wait for news on the Steam Machine and Steam Frame, Valve is still selling one piece of in-demand hardware, the Steam Controller. But with demand vastly exceeding supply of the new PC gamepad, Valve acknowledged it’s struggling to keep up and may not ship some reservations for the Steam Controller until 2027.
On Thursday, Valve said that reservations for the Steam Controller will now show when customers might get their hardware. “We have no plans to stop making Steam Controller. But as we look at the current demand compared to how many we know we can make by the end of the year, we want to manage expectations as much as we can with regards to when folks can expect to receive their order,” Valve said in a post on Steam.
Steam Controller reservations will now show the time frame that Valve expects them to ship. There are now three estimated order windows, according to Valve:
- By September 2026
- By December 2026
- 2027
Valve notes that the 2027 release window may not be set in stone — there’s a chance that customers who reserve a Steam Controller could get one before that. On Friday, when we tried to reserve a new Steam Controller, the shipping window was “2027,” indicating that Valve is heavily backed up on reservations.
The $99 Steam Controller went up for sale in May, and Valve quickly sold out of the device. The company said it underestimated demand for the new controller and quickly opened a new reservation system for restocks of the hardware. Even though the controller isn’t constrained by volatile RAM prices and supply, there’s still the issue of printed circuit board prices spiking, thanks to Donald Trump’s war on Iran. While everything related to tech is awful right now, at least the Steam Controller itself is a solid piece of hardware.
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