Bellevue, Washington, May 4, 2026, 11:09 PDT
Valve’s Steam Controller was snapped up in roughly half an hour after sales began Monday, quickly clearing out as the company tries once again to get its living-room PC hardware into players’ hands, though the Steam Machine itself still has no set release date. Around the 10 a.m. Pacific kickoff, PC Gamer noted that Steam encountered buying glitches and a noticeable uptick in support tickets.
The launch comes as Valve delivers the earliest piece of its 2026 hardware lineup to customers. Both the Steam Machine—a small form-factor PC targeting TV gamers—and the Steam Frame, Valve’s upcoming VR headset, remain in limbo. Pricing and release dates for those two are still up in the air, after supply issues with memory and storage caused delays.
Valve gets a promising signal, though it’s not quite a decisive victory. There’s clear demand for the controller. The challenge: turning that attention into sales of a pricier Steam Machine, especially with PC component prices still all over the place.
Valve set the U.S. price for the controller at $99, while The Verge reported it would run $149 in both Canada and Australia, £85 in the UK, and €99 across the EU. It’s designed for use on PCs with Steam, as well as Steam Link devices—not strictly for the not-yet-launched Steam Machine.
Igromania, the Russian gaming website, reported that Steam’s device page quickly listed the controller as out of stock, and pointed out the sale wasn’t available for Russian buyers. According to the site, the initial batch was snapped up “in minutes.” Igromania
Valve’s controller leans on inputs straight off the Steam Deck: magnetic TMR thumbsticks, dual haptic trackpads, gyro, grip sensors, four customizable rear buttons, and four haptic motors. For the thumbsticks, TMR—short for tunnel magnetoresistance—handles magnetic sensing. The battery runs over 35 hours, according to Valve, thanks to an 8.39 watt-hour cell. Wireless and charging? That’s covered by a bundled puck designed for quick, low-latency connection.
Valve tried to get ahead of any shortages. “We have built up a good supply of this,” Valve engineer Steve Cardinali told PC Gamer before launch. Still, he cautioned, demand might run higher than anticipated. Designer Lawrence Yang added that Valve had “wiggle room” to keep the item from being out of stock too long. PC Gamer
The controller came out ahead, largely because its hardware’s less complex. “This doesn’t have RAM in it,” Cardinali explained to Polygon, as quoted by TechRadar. By contrast, the Steam Machine and Steam Frame are tangled up in the same memory and storage shortages affecting PC hardware makers. TechRadar
Pierre-Loup Griffais at Valve told The Verge there’s still no new word on the Steam Machine or Steam Frame. He did say the team is “hard at work” and hopes to share news soon. The company has maintained its plan to get those devices out before year’s end. The Verge
Valve is edging toward a Steam Machine announcement, according to Insider Gaming’s Mike Straw, who reports the company has weighed the idea of selling the hardware at a short-term loss. For now, Valve hasn’t made anything official—it’s still just a report, not confirmation from the company.
Valve’s $99 tag lands it higher than most regular controllers, but still under the asking price for a few pro models. According to TechRadar, you’ll pay around $60 for the 8BitDo Ultimate 2 or Sony DualSense. On the high end, the Razer Wolverine V3 Pro and Xbox Elite Wireless Controller Series 2 jump to $180 or above.
The danger: Steam Controller may wind up as a flashy intro to Valve hardware that’s simply too expensive to really move. Yang told PC Gamer that everything they make needing those components faces shortages, higher prices, and memory bottlenecks—Steam Machine included. Valve, he said, is working to keep Steam Machine pricing in the realm of its rivals.
Valve’s controller has sold out, and the company’s facing a self-imposed deadline. What matters next isn’t if PC gamers grab a Steam-branded accessory—it’s whether Valve can expand on this momentum and push out a wider hardware launch before talk shifts to the Steam Machine’s price tag.
