The Steam Controller went on sale on May 4th, 2026, and sold out faster than most people anticipated, and that’s saying something, because expectations were already high.
I won’t sugarcoat it: attempting to buy the controller was not a smooth experience. In an attempt to streamline checkout, I preloaded my Steam Wallet rather than using a credit card. My logic was simple: if you’re buying directly from Valve, using Valve’s own payment system should make things easier. It certainly did not.
Despite having the controller in my cart and a funded wallet, I ran into repeated purchase failures. The only solution was hammering the retry button until Steam finally processed the order. It was a frustrating exercise, and I was ultimately one of the lucky ones: someone who wanted the controller for gaming, testing, and review purposes and actually managed to get one.
The sellout window was somewhere between 30 and 60 minutes from the 10 AM Pacific launch. By the time the lunchtime crowd checked in, the store page was already showing the controller as unavailable. Shortly after, I checked eBay, and it was exactly what I expected. Secondary market prices reached as high as $300 for a...
