Valve has stated that their newest Steam Controller sold out much faster than they expected. The controller literally disappeared from stock almost immediately after the sale went live!
The company is now trying to secure new supplies of the Steam Controller, because everything sold out instantly as soon as the controller launched.
At the same time, scalpers have appeared who are reselling the device at a higher price than the original.
Demand is huge, Valve did expect big hype BUT NOT SO BIG THAT THEY WOULD RUN OUT OF STOCK!
Valve themselves admitted; "The controller ran out faster than we anticipated"
The Steam Controller was released on May 4 this year, the price is around $99, but it very quickly became out of stock. Valve claims they are working on new supplies and will soon give an update to the public on when the restock of the Steam Controller is coming.
All of this is because the launch was much more successful than they planned.
The new Steam Controller is part of a broader Valve hardware story. Many Steam devices existed before this; Steam Machine, Steam Frame VR, generally the Steam ecosystem.
Valve now sees this new Steam Controller as an ideal companion for Steam Machine, but also as a device for couch PC gaming.
The controller uses a haptic touch philosophy, and Steam Input functions, as well as support for a large number of PC games. With all of this, Valve is trying to further merge the PC and console-like experience.
But a new BIG PROBLEM has appeared for Valve, and that is scalpers and reselling of the Steam Controller at higher prices. Because of that, Valve has been criticized by people for not having better protection against bots and resellers.
All of this adds even more drama around the launch itself.
Valve has been seriously strengthening the hardware side of their ecosystem in the past few years; with Steam Deck, VR devices, and various new Steam hardware. The controller market is now much bigger than it used to be, now millions of Steam players use gamepads.
Because of that, they have a real audience for a premium Steam Controller.
There is massive demand for this new Steam Controller, and Valve clearly perfectly hit the interests of their audience. But problems with stock and scalpers have emerged, and the question remains how quickly they can bring back stock before players empty it again.
Valve definitely did not expect this level of hype for the Steam Controller.
Discussion(0)