https://x.com/valvesoftware/status/2051695149026353424
“Steam Controller ran out faster than we anticipated, and we hate that not everyone who wanted one was able to get it. We’re working on getting more in stock and will have an update on expected timeline soon.”
They could just open up a permenant preorder system for all of their hardware and avoid the bullshit to begin with.
Yeah, I mean, at this point valve has proved to be trustworthy. I wouldn’t mind placing a pre-order or backorder with them.
What I don’t understand is why they don’t just let everyone place orders regardless of current stock over a certain time window, then once the ordering window is closed, arrange for production to meet demand? Or at least do something like a first-come, first-serve waitlist after the initial stock sells out.
Sure, it would take significantly longer to go from order to delivery, but the customer experience would be so much better without having to deal with the mad scramble to try and get an order in the minute they open up. Letting people stake their claim even if stock hasn’t caught up yet would also deter scalpers.
Maybe there’s a good reason for this, but I don’t know what that could possibly be.
A) You’ll have people selling their place in line, which means that those who can afford to take a large quantity of orders in advance can profit from the difference
B) It’s not exactly good PR to order something and having to wait a variable window of time for it to finally arive at your door (see almost all Bethesda merch incidents post Fallout NV)
C) Valve doesn’t operate like a dropshipper. There is no “white label” steam controller being made in china that they can slap their logo on and sell as soon as people order for it. They have to contract volume in advance, since it’s a bespoke product.
If only they limited it to 1 per steam account and made it only available to accounts that are sufficiently old.
You can buy counter strike and tf2 defunct trading platform accounts that are decades old for pennies on the dollar.
They don’t even know how to price it they have to reorder everything and cost it out, prices are fluctuating a lot right now throughout the supply chain.
One thing that comes to mind is that even if they get hit by a space rock tomorrow, your order is on it’s way. There’s guarantee it exists and is already destined for you. Seems fair and safe.
Seems like they are sacrificing revenue to guarantee they’ll be able to execute in the delivery. It’s not the highest bar, but it is a bar.
Please Valve, get the fuck off X.
And at the very least, they shouldn’t be paying the fascists running it $2,000 a year to be there.
There’s a decent chance an account as big as Valve gets the “premium business” bullshit for free. Not sure if there’s a way to tell but it’s definitely possible.
They should diversify where they post and help guide people to those other platforms, but just leaving X altogether wouldn’t accomplish anything. They need to talk to the people where they are
That’s nonsense, if they post on their own website a thousand twitter accounts would screenshot and reshare.
Valve dont need to be on X lol, anything they post in an official manner on any site, will be immediately shared by news outlets anyway.
Same goes for any large company.
they are on bluesky fwiw
They need to be on Mastodon specifically.
Really any activitypub compatible service. Honestly for a big company like that I dislike mastodon, bluesky, anything twitter adjacent, because then responses become a linear “stream of consciousness”of people responding and it’s hard to filter the signal from the noise. Honestly I’d prefer a value community on lemmy somewhere that they run
Well said. Valve is a business, and X is where you post if you actually want a massive number of eyes on your content. The only real alternative is facebook and maybe tictok.
Convince the user base to switch platforms first, and the companies will follow.
Don’t feed the scalpers people
this reads like “more than a month” and i’m so bummed. i really want one :c
I’m a bit miffed they didn’t handle the release better. Not sure what restrictions were in place but judging from eBay scalper screenshots it wasn’t much.
It was limited to two per purchase, but I could still add (and maybe buy) more after I bought my 2
If only there were two other console SKUs they sold in the past that would’ve better prepared them for this.
Really should have just let people preorder to get ideas for day one demand. I expect after one major restock, the resale value tanks and things are normal in gamepad land again. I’m always annoyed with these companies not taking backorders. They did that with the Deck. It’s a controller sold by the company it’s from sold in its store that has already had backorders done for the Deck launch. This isn’t Nvidia and AIB partners. This is fully Valve controlled in a proven storefront. They could have handled this way better
Scalpers are already selling it like double the MSRP.
Man, if anyone reeaaallly wanted one and didn’t get it hmu and maybe I could ship you my v1
But this reeks of scalpers to me, if you really need a controller save some dosh and pick up a Vader Pro
My eyes lit up when you mentioned the Vader Pro, but I was left with disappointment due to the lack of dual trackpads.
Yep. The trackpads are 90% of why I want this controller. It’s such a killer feature.
As an owner of the original I find the track pads to be pretty meh. Theyre equally as good as any track pad, so not great. What I like and cant understand why isn’t universal are the paddleflaps/buttons on the back. The closest anything has ever gotten is the Z button on the n64 controller.
For me, the trackpads are specifically useful for mouse controls, not for precision. I’m a couch gamer and tired of having to reach for my mouse or keyboard just to do one thing and then grab my controller again.
With the trackpads, I also get the virtual keyboard. Another killer feature.
Yeah they have their uses. I’m glad they relocated them to the bottom of the controller though, as they aren’t quite useful enough to be at the center. I’m curious if the new one will have the same comfort level as the old one.
The trackpads on the Steamdeck/SC2 are much better than the SC1.
Valve was forced to stop manufacturing the SC1 due to patent trolling related to the paddles.
It took me a while to get used to them but using dual track pads for all games made everything feel so much better, I’m getting the new controller but I think there’s a good chance I’ll stick to the original Steam Controller.
If yoi take some time to tweak the settings the track pads can do anything.
I use mine for radial menu input without the need for a modifier button. Many of the best mods I use for skyrim/fallout use keybinds for all sorts of actions. Games that work best with mouse/keyboard that have way too many keybinds for a normal controller worked awesome on my OG steamcontroller and great on the deck with a little configuration.
I want one, but I’m not sure I $100 want one.
Is the controller a limited run kind of thing or does valve intend to continue selling them indefinetly?
Indefinitely.
Thanks!
I hope this wasn’t deliberate, but if it was Valve is going down the dark Nintendo path.
They do not want to over produce. Its very likely they just under estimated how many people would want it at this price point.
They’ve been burned sitting on stock that they have to fire sale to get rid of.
I got two Steam Links for $10 back in the day
Valve has no reason to do this with intention. I just think they didn’t a good job preventing or slowing down scalpers. I think they didn’t think it would sell out like this, because they know the price is a bit on higher side. And compared to the Steam Deck, they don’t “need” to sell those controllers immediately.
At the end I believe it was just miscalculation. That’s all to it.
I’m not following, why would they want to make less money?
It’s marketing. Nintendo deliberately under stocks new hardware to make the value of the device explode on the secondary market. Scalpers know this and usually buy out most of the first run. When you can’t get the new Nintendo device because it’s unavailable and scalpers are selling it for 2-3x retail price, you are far more likely to buy is asap when it comes back in stock. They make less money initially but in a way that makes the value of the product extremely high, giving people extremely high motivation to buy while they can. Also, a sale to a scalper is worth as much to Nintendo as sale to a consumer. Nintendo is notorious for doing this every time.
Pretty sure that everyone who wanted a switch 2 on launch got one, and I didn’t hear about any huge scalper problems or shortages. It set records for a launch, 3.4m in the first 4 days; 5.82m in the first month. 1.1m in the US week 1, beating PS4.
Now stop making me defend Nintendo of all things
Nintendo consoles are usually there to play exclusive games on it. The Steam Controller on the other hand is not a neccessary device. I don’t know if Nintendo does scarcity intentionally (I doubt that, but that is not the point here), but for Valve there is absolutely no reason to.
I’m of the assumption that of their production runs they have a majority of controllers currently allocated to the console shipments that we’ve been hearing about the last few days. I assume this will even out with time and wasn’t super intentional
