Valve’s new €89 controller sold out in 30 minutes, is restocked, then sold out again
The new Steam Controller went on sale on May 4. By the time most people were awake to think about it, it was already gone.
Reports put the first sellout at roughly 30 minutes after launch, and the rush was heavy enough to take parts of the Steam storefront offline along the way. Valve restocked. The second wave was gone in about 15 minutes. As of writing, the controller is still listed as out of stock on Steam, while resellers on eBay are asking €150 and up for an €89 product.
Whether that means demand is huge or the initial allocation was small is hard to say from the outside. Probably some of both, considering Valve’s track record with the Steam Deck. There is just impressive demand for these devices.
Either way, the practical situation today is the same: if you want one at retail, you are waiting for the next restock and maybe even playing the stock lottery with a bunch of scalpers. Nothing new here folks!
Scalpers will be scalpin’
eBay within hours of launch: €89 controllers, listed at €150 and above.
Predictable, depressing, and exactly on schedule. Within hours of the first sellout, eBay was full of brand-new Steam Controllers listed at roughly double retail, with some asks pushing well past that. The same playbook we have seen many times before, with GPUs, now applied to an €89 gamepad.
The only real defence against this is patience. Valve has said it intends to keep the controller in stock, and based on past Steam Deck restocks it tends to follow through. Paying a scalper €150+ for an €89 product, only to watch it return to the Steam store at retail a few weeks later, is a story that has played out enough times that it should not need repeating. Wait for the restock.
A scroll through eBay turns up listings using AI-generated renders instead of photos of an actual product.
Some of the resale listings are even using AI-generated images of the controller! Take a look at that atrocity.
What the early reviews are saying
The new Steam Controller. / Credit: Valve
The first hands-on writeups have started landing, and the early read is broadly positive with one consistent caveat.
Liam Dawe at GamingOnLinux, who has spent more time with Steam Input than almost anyone, called it “a thoroughly feature-filled controller that’s PC-first” with great battery life and excellent comfort. His main reservation is the learning curve. To get the most out of the trackpads, gyro and remappable inputs, he writes, you “need to dive into the depths of Steam Input, which is in a lot of ways pretty convoluted to learn.”
That tracks with the broader tone elsewhere. PC Gamer’s Jacob Ridley scored it 83%, with a verdict that lands on the same fence: “There’s nothing quite like the Steam Controller in how it mimics a mouse, a clever combination of trackpads and gyro controls. If you’re often gaming from your couch or bed, it’s worth a look, but if you’re just after a quality pad with no extra inputs, there are cheaper options.” He calls the TMR sticks “super responsive,” enough to let him drop the default deadzone by more than half, but flags that the controller is not a value champion next to cheaper Hall-effect pads from 8BitDo or GameSir. Rock Paper Shotgun has a full review live as well.
The shared thread across the early writeups is that the hardware is genuinely good, the trackpads and TMR sticks feel like a real step forward, and the depth is there for people who want to configure it. The thing nobody is calling it is plug-and-play.
If you were already a Steam Input person, the consensus seems to be that this is the controller you have been waiting for. If you were hoping for a casual €89 Xbox-controller alternative, the picture is less clear cut.
And Norway?
Nothing yet.
There is no Norwegian launch date, no NOK pricing, no listing on the Norwegian Steam store, and no word on whether Valve plans to ship the controller into Norway directly or route it through a partner the way it has with Steam Deck. The first wave was effectively a US story.
I will update this post, and the Norway-focused launch piece, the moment Valve says anything official about a Nordic rollout.
Until then, the honest answer for Norway is the same as it was last week. We are waiting.
