Valve has some good news and bad news about the Steam Controllers. Good news: If you make a reservation for a Steam controller, the company will now show you one of three estimates for when you’ll actually be able to order your gamepad: by September 2026, by December 2026, or in 2027. The bad news: Any reservations made today “indicate a 2027 date for shipping,” Valve says.
According to Valve, “We have no plans to stop making the Steam Controller.” “But as we look at current demand compared to how much we know we can make by the end of the year, we want to manage expectations as much as possible about when people can expect to receive their order.”
Valve’s pretty cool new Steam controller went on sale in early May, and the early rush caused some people to face frustrating problems trying to check out the controller before it ran out of stock. A few days later, the company announced that it would implement a reservation queue for interested buyers so that they could join the waiting list. If you’re on the waiting list, when you’re notified that a Steam controller is ready for you to purchase, you have 72 hours to actually order.
“When we launched the Steam Controller last month, we immediately saw that initial demand exceeded our expectations,” Valve says. “Switching to the reservation queue has (hopefully) reduced the headaches on the customer side, and it’s also been helpful for us as we plan ahead and try to get as many people out as quickly as possible.”
While the component crisis delayed plans to launch all three of Valve’s big hardware products in early 2026, Valve still hasn’t announced when the Steam Machine PC or Steam Frame VR headset might go on sale. However, just yesterday, Valve officially launched its big SteamOS 3.8 update with Steam Machine support. It has also been importing a lot of hardware to the US recently.
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