Winners & losers: The Steam Controller is here! Well, it was here for a whole 30 minutes before it sold out. Predictably, the $99 device has already been grabbed by a slew of scalpers who are charging around $300, and sometimes more, for one on eBay.
Update (May 7): Valve has announced a new reservation system for the Steam Controller following the chaotic launch earlier this week, admitting that "the experience for a lot of you trying to buy it was incredibly frustrating." Beginning May 8 at 10am Pacific, users will be able to join a reservation queue that preserves their place in line until inventory becomes available again. Valve says order emails will be sent in reservation order, and buyers will have 72 hours to complete their purchase.
The company is also introducing several anti-scalping measures. Reservations will be limited to one controller per user, existing buyers cannot reserve another unit for now, and eligible accounts must be in good standing and have made a Steam purchase before April 27, 2026.
Valve says fulfillment will begin next week in the US and Canada, followed by the UK, Europe, and Australia in the coming weeks. The move comes after launch-day stock sold out in roughly 30 minutes, with resale listings quickly appearing online at more than double the controller's $99 MSRP.
The controller's Steam page initially showed it with a delivery time of 3-5 business days, but that quickly increased to 6-10 days. It was around half an hour after launch when the site showed an Out-of-Stock label, which is still there.
If you are desperate for a Steam Controller, there's always eBay. As we've seen countless times over the years when high-demand items vanish quickly, the auction platform is awash with these devices, grabbed by scalpers (or their bots, to be specific) with the sole intention of making an exploitative profit.
The most expensive Steam Controller on eBay right now is $556, 461% more than Valve's selling price. The vast majority of the others are between $200 and $280, which is still more than double what you should be paying. There are also some sneaky sellers that have listed original Steam controllers, some with the old Steam Link, to take advantage of the current demand.
Valve hasn't said when the Steam Controller will be back in stock, though there are reports from some users who say it has intermittently reappeared since the initial launch before quickly going out of stock again.
Part of the rush is being driven by the controller's strong early reception. Reviews have praised its comfort, customization, trackpads, gyro controls, TMR thumbsticks, and Steam Deck-like layout, though some note that $99 is steep and its reliance on Steam limits wider appeal.
Valve says the controller grew out of how people were using the Steam Deck, especially those docking it to a TV and losing access to the handheld's built-in inputs. Speaking to Tom's Hardware, programmer Pierre-Loup Griffais and mechanical engineer Steve Cardinali described it as a logical next step: a Deck-like controller that keeps the same familiar layout while making keyboard-and-mouse PC games more playable from the couch.
That explains the trackpads, four rear buttons, gyro, and new Grip Sense feature, which detects where the player is touching the controller. Valve also avoided adding extras that would increase cost, weight, or battery drain.
The included Puck doubles as a 2.4GHz wireless receiver and charging dock. Valve says the Puck's custom protocol allows up to four controllers without the latency problems seen when multiple pads are connected over Bluetooth.
On Windows and macOS, the Steam Controller mostly behaves like a mouse and keyboard unless Steam is running, at which point Steam Input handles its gamepad mappings and per-game profiles. Linux has kernel-level gamepad support, but Valve says avoiding its own kernel driver elsewhere reduces the risk of system instability, which might disappoint anyone hoping for a universal Xbox controller replacement.