Valve has revealed that its new Steam Controller will be available for purchase starting on May 4 and will cost £85 in the UK and $99 in the US. Some gamers are concerned about these costs.
The second iteration of the gamepad will work with both PCs and the Steam Deck, a portable console from Valve. Additionally, it is made to function with the Steam Machine, the company’s forthcoming gaming PC.
Chris Scullion deputy editor of Video Games Chronicle said:
“The Steam Controller may be more expensive than the standard controllers from Nintendo, Xbox and PlayStation, but we do live in a time where companies including Sony and Microsoft are selling premium controllers for £150-£200”,
However, some gamers have responded negatively on social media. In response to an early review, a Reddit remark stated that the pricing altered it from “insta-buy to thinking about it”. Another on Bluesky, however, said the price made “sense” considering the “more premium” technology used.
Scullion told BBC News:
“The early hands-on verdicts on the Steam Controller appear to be positive, so while I don’t see it taking over the Xbox Wireless Controller as the most commonly used PC controller, I can still certainly see it selling reasonably well among the smaller group of core enthusiasts willing to pay more for such a peripheral,”
The wireless controller’s usage of haptic trackpads, which allow players to mimic mouse controls in PC games, and a magnetic “puck” to charge and sync the pad with the PC have received mostly excellent reviews. Reviewers did draw attention to the controller’s lack of “swappable parts” and personalisation, though.
The pad is incompatible with consoles and is only intended to be used with devices running Steam, Valve’s PC gaming platform. The pricing, which is double that of the device’s 2015 first iteration, has been a major topic of contention on the internet. It falls between the existing standard controller tiers for PlayStation and Xbox (approximately between £45-£65, $60-75) and their premium ones (about between £120-£160, $150-200).
One of the most upvoted comments read:
“I have paid more for a controller, I have paid a lot less, too.”
One justification of the cost said:
“This device wasn’t made to be your plug and play controller, it’s meant to be specifically a controller for your PC,”
The Steam Machine, Valve’s second effort at a gaming PC intended to bring PC games to the TV, has not yet had a set release date, but its price has led some to speculate about its possible cost.
In a market dominated by Xbox, PlayStation, and Nintendo, Valve’s initial attempt at the hardware, which was introduced in 2015, was unsuccessful.
Then, prices began at $499 (£300), but as management professor Joost van Dreunen noted in February, “the combination of global tariffs and AI companies’ voracious appetite for compute” meant that this iteration is anticipated to cost significantly more.
Higher hardware prices throughout the sector have also been connected to the growing cost of computer components like RAM, which is partly due to demand from AI data centers.
While maintaining its goal of launching the Steam Machine in the first half of 2026, Valve stated in February that it was changing the price and release date of both the Steam Machine and its wireless VR headset, the Steam Frame.
