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.”
this reads like “more than a month” and i’m so bummed. i really want one :c
An absolutely based strategy would be to launch a highly anticipated product with falsely constrained supply. Then right as the scalpers start posting their shit release the real supply with like a $10 price reduction and make a big announcement. Scalpers get rekt when everyone who wants one can get it for $10 less.
PSA: don’t buy any from eBay. fuck scalpers.
if you don’t buy it they won’t sell it. if they don’t sell it, they won’t buy more.
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Scalping is legal in lots of countries.
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People reselling stuff for profit is the cornerstone of capitalism.
They are wholefully different situations, and it’s astonishing you went there for a rebuttal.
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That doesn’t mean you go and abuse someone’s reporting system for something that’s not against their rules or their countries sellers rules.
You just seem to be very angry about this, chill out dude.
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Should report them on eBay too. Force eBay to stop allowing this behavior!
Technically, if they don’t list it as a “Pre-sale” or “Pre-order”, they can be reported. See here.
Meanwhile the flipping Deck is still out of stock.
It wouldn’t surprise me if it will stay out of stock until ram prices come down (if ever) :/
I mean it is pretty long in the tooth at this point, with a growing number of games that it is not powerful enough to run.
It still works well enough still from me helping my kid set up theirs, though I do hope they update it again, maybe with a 2280 slot for a larger storage capacity as the 2TB max of a 2230 even when you upgrade it is kinda meh for PC games that can easily break 100GB.
It’s pretty rough trying to get by on 512 gb.
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 cup 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.
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.
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.
Please Valve, get the fuck off X.
Convince the user base to switch platforms first, and the companies will follow.
Every time they make a news announcement on a different platform, just make a tweet that says “Hey, Valve news update here: <link>. BTW, fuck Elon”
Easier said than done but they’d hardly be the first.
Kinda reminds me of a poster I saw today advertising a communist group and an anti-billionaire rally. Had a QR code to follow them on Instagram and X. 🙄
They’re a big enough name to make it work too.
Hell, Skip the baby step of Bluesky and get em a Mastodon account.
Reminds me of a local pro-privacy group I came across a while back, whose only public online presence was a Facebook group.
Like I get it from a “reach” standpoint, and I think it’s fine if you’re following a POSSE system, but I feel a lot of people don’t do that.
Extinction Rebellion primarily used WhatsApp as their communication method. I always knew those guys were a bit of a joke but their opsec is utterly useless.
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.
It’s unfortunate BlueSky is going the way it is the atproto seems pretty cool, and tangled appeals to me for the social appeal of code.
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.
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.
Only a rumor, but I’ve heard Gabe Newell is friendly and social with Elon Musk, as a fellow billionaire.
I think it was confirmed that they’re friends or at least used to be in like 2019. Not sure how it is now with how far off the deep end musk went.
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
Don’t feed the scalpers people
It wouldn’t have cost them anything to say “we’re opening up orders to users who have had a Steam account for at least 2 years, limit 2 per account. After 30 days we’ll open it up to everyone. “
That alone would have stopped so much scalping, and garnered goodwill with the players.
But do offer them a carrot they can never quite reach but seems worth going out of their way for.
You can report scalpers and get their listings taken down on ebay.
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.
Plus hardware preorders actually still make sense because it can’t just be digitally copied and a key generated without anyone even needing to press a button. Which was also the case for games at one point.
How the did it with the steam deck was nice. It wasn’t a pre-order in the usual sense, since you didn’t pay anywhere close to full price. Just a refundable $5 that would go towards the cost of purchase when you bought it.
I don’t mind that for hardware, since it cuts out scalpers and doesn’t obligate you to purchase something before you know the quality.
That’s 100% the way to do it. Wonder why they aren’t doing that again. Maybe they’ll open it up.
As someone who waited 6 months for their Framework 13 pre-order batch to ship, let me tell you, there are drawbacks to that system as well!
Looks to me more an endorsement of preordering when stock is limited. If delivering laptops in the order it received took 6 months then a first come first serve would have meant no laptop at all within 6 months for many people who wanted one.
It’d come down more to who is the luckiest and has the best bots.
I already waited a few years for a new Steam Controller, so what’s another half a year?
Did they not limit pre-orders to people with existing steam accounts and one controller per account because that would have been an excellent idea and I assumed that they would have thought of that.
Anyway I have zero interest in the controller until the VR headset comes out.
They did it with the Deck, but apparently didn’t think the controller would garner the same reaction, somehow.
They did do it with the controller though
Yeah I think the limit was two per account. I don’t think scalpers are really to blame here they just really didn’t account for how much people wanted this thing.
Honestly I don’t even blame them for underestimating demand. Based on comments here and my own personal intuition, I would’ve guessed that it would’ve sold great, to a very niche audience.
Maybe it has more widespread demand than expected, those track pads make it amazing for any couch PC usage, gaming or not, and many existing SteamDeck owners like myself are already aware of this.
Is the controller a limited run kind of thing or does valve intend to continue selling them indefinetly?
Indefinitely.
Thanks!
I want one, but I’m not sure I $100 want one.
Nobody cares
True lol
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.
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.
Why wouldn’t the scalpers just fill up the queue?
What’s the point of scalping if the supply is unlimited?
Supply is exactly as limited, in this scenario, as it is now. A queue does not cause valve to manufacture more.
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.
Dang, I didn’t know that. Just gets more complicated!
Maybe active accounts that are old lol
Look at this comment chain is ideas that are good in theory
I’ve had friends who haven’t bought a game in a very long time and still plays games like it’s 2013 (wish I could do that). On the other hand I have a cousin who me and another cousin are tying to get into pc gaming, and thus has a very new account with practically no games, and might continue playing on his Xbox till he can a steam machine or decent pc
I for one would also love to stop scalpers and make a flag of their skin but that’s really hard when protections have to also not alienate any actual customers
Because market conditions are fucking insane right now. If they allow backorder and their production price doubles they would have to either honor the orders and take a huge loss, or refuse to honor the price and take a reputational hit.
$5 to get in queue. Price adjusted as needed when order is available. Done.
This free-for-all system is bullshit and has been extra shitty for everything since 2020.
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.
Why not just take all the orders now and increase the estimated shipping date? Cut scalpers off at the knees by eliminating FOMO.
I love my original steam controller. I want one of the new ones for when my original eventually breaks. I don’t need it now though. So I would be happy to wait, if I knew they weren’t going to abandon it like the old controller.
