It only took 30 minutes for Valve's first stock of new Steam Controllers to sell out. Some of us at PC Gamer managed to order them, while others were turned away by Steam errors and will have to wait for a restock.
For impatient people with money to burn, confirmed orders of the controllers immediately hit eBay, where they're successfully selling for as much as $300. That's a 200% markup on the $99 that Valve is offering them for. (One person is asking for $735,889.32, but unsurprisingly, no one is biting.)
Measures like order quantity limits have helped curb the reselling of in-demand tech, but there doesn't seem to be any way to completely prevent the unpopular behavior aside from having a stock surplus. It's too late for that in this case, though we might not have to wait too long for that $99 order button to light up again. Prior to today's launch, Valve said that it was prepared to ramp up production if needed.
"We do think we'll have a good amount of stock around the world for the launch," Valve designer Lawrence Yang told PC Gamer in April. "So and then, at the factory, if we're like, 'Oh, we actually probably need to make more,' then we can turn that knob up and have them producing more."
The original Steam Controller from 2015 was a curiosity that could never quite be described as popular, but "second time's the charm," Jacob wrote in his 83% review of the 2026 Steam Controller.
So it's a good controller, but the hunger for it may partially be down to anticipation for Valve's other new hardware, particularly its new Steam Machine, which has been delayed due to speculative AI investing driving up RAM prices.
I've asked Valve for more info on when we can expect Steam Controllers to be back in stock, and will update this post when we learn more.
