Business · BBC Technology
Valve's £85 Steam Controller divides gamers ahead of May launch
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Valve has announced its new Steam Controller will be available to order from 4 May, and will cost £85 in the UK and $99 in the US - prices that have raised eyebrows among some gamers.
Key facts
- Valve has announced its new Steam Controller will be available to order from 4 May, and will cost £85 in the UK and $99 in the US
- prices that have raised eyebrows among some gamers
- It sits between current standard tiers for controllers for consoles such as PlayStation and Xbox (roughly between £45-£65, $60-$75) and their premium versions (roughly between £120
- £160, $150-$200)
- The Steam Controller may be more expensive than the standard controllers from Nintendo, Xbox and PlayStation, but they do live in a time where companies including Sony and Microsoft are selling
- Prices then started at $499 (£300) but, as business professor Joost van Dreunen remarked in February, "the combination of global tariffs and AI companies' voracious appetite for compute" meant
Summary
The second generation of the gamepad, it will be compatible with PCs and Valve's handheld console, the Steam Deck. It is also designed to work with the company's own upcoming gaming PC, the Steam Machine. "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", said Chris Scullion deputy editor of Video Games Chronicle. There has been a negative reaction from some gamers on social media though.