However, another on Bluesky felt the cost made “sense”<\/a> given the “more premium” tech involved.<\/p>\n “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,” Scullion told BBC News<\/p>\n Valve v consoles<\/p>\n Reviews have been largely positive about the wireless controller’s use of haptic trackpads, which let players simulate mouse controls in PC games, and of a magnetic ‘puck’ to sync the pad to PC, as well as charge it.<\/p>\n However, reviewers also pointed out the lack of “swappable parts”<\/a> and customisation in the controller.<\/p>\n The pad is designed to only work with devices running Valve’s PC gaming platform Steam and is not compatible with consoles.<\/p>\n Much of the discussion online has focused on the price, twice what the first generation of the device cost in 2015.<\/p>\n It sits between current standard tiers for controllers for consoles such as PlayStation and Xbox (roughly between \u00a345-\u00a365, $60-$75) and their premium versions (roughly between \u00a3120 – \u00a3160, $150-$200).<\/p>\n “I have paid more for a controller, I have paid a lot less, too,” read one of the most upvoted comments<\/a>.<\/p>\n “This device wasn’t made to be your plug and play controller, it’s meant to be specifically a controller for your PC,” said one justification of the cost.<\/a><\/p>\n [Valve]<\/p>\n The price has led some to speculate about the potential cost of the Steam Machine, Valve’s second attempt at a gaming PC<\/a> designed to bring PC games to the TV, which does not yet have a specific release date.<\/p>\n Valve’s first shot at the hardware was released in 2015, but it failed to break into a market dominated by Xbox, PlayStation and Nintendo.<\/p>\n Prices then started at $499 (\u00a3300) but, as business professor Joost van Dreunen remarked in February<\/a>, “the combination of global tariffs and AI companies’ voracious appetite for compute” meant this iteration is expected to cost a lot more.<\/p>\n The rising cost of computer components such as Ram<\/a> – driven in part by demand from AI data centres – has also been linked to higher hardware prices across the industry.<\/p>\n In February Valve announced<\/a> it was revising both the price and release date of the Steam Machine, alongside its wireless VR headset the Steam Frame, while still aiming for a launch in the first half of 2026.<\/p>\n [BBC]<\/p>\n Sign up for our Tech Decoded newsletter<\/a> to follow the world’s top tech stories and trends. Outside the UK? Sign up here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Valve has announced its new Steam Controller will be available to order from 4 May, and will cost…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":633933,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[49,48,237143,16352,44551,127177,97173,127176,61,47303,6734,237142],"class_list":["post-633932","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-technology","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-chris-scullion","tag-controller","tag-pc-games","tag-steam-controller","tag-steam-deck","tag-steam-machine","tag-technology","tag-valve","tag-xbox","tag-xbox-wireless-controller"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/633932","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=633932"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/633932\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/633933"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=633932"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=633932"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=633932"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/80ceea6d95cffd922fbbb14be1e821b8.jpeg\"\/)
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