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Steam Controller: Reservations open May 8th - Steam News (store.steampowered.com)
submitted 3 months ago by to c/games@lemmy.world
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[–] 83 points 3 months ago (2 children)

Cool, they've done effectively the same thing they did with the Steam Deck. I think they truly didn't anticipate the volume of people interested in the controller.

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  • [–] 45 points 3 months ago (2 children)

    Which is surprising, they should have had the stats based on wishlisting alone.

    They really should have had this system in place from the get-go, I was actually expecting it to work that way.

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  • [–] 49 points 3 months ago (2 children)

    I said it somewhere else, but I think Valve actually did factor in wishlist counts. The problem is in the percentage of those that convert to sales. For games, the median conversion rate is 10% to 20% of wishlists converting to sales within the first week. I expect the Steam Controller's conversion rate was much higher.

    Valve may have even tried anticipating this from Deck sales and still failed to account for the Deck conversion rate still being lower due to the greater price.

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  • [–] 16 points 3 months ago (1 child)

    Yeah I have 500+ games on my wishlist. Just to keep track of specific games. Stuff has been on there for years.

    I do wonder how many Steam Deck owners would also want the controller and what the ratio is. There's how many Steam Deck owners? 3-4 million? Even if 5% of those wanted a controller that's 200k. 25% is almost a million. And then there's the people that only want the controller for their PC/HTPC, others potentially buying for their future Steam Machine...

    I would guestimate 2 million controllers on the conservative side, 6 million on the other end.

    I do wonder if they expected 5 million and demand is over 10 million...or more...would explain the OOS and lack of a reserve system if they thought they'd had enough.

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  • [–] 1 point 3 months ago (1 child)

    I must turn off the mails for wishlist prices now that you say it

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  • [–] 1 point 3 months ago

    In case it works for you, I use IsThereAnyDeal instead of Steam for sale notifications. You can either import your Steam wishlist or make a fresh one on the site, then make a notification system as simple or as complex as you want. I've got my setup to notify me only when my most anticipated games hit new historical lows or when anything else in my wishlist hits 90% off.

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  • [–] 4 points 3 months ago (1 child)

    This is definitely true for me. I have the controller and Frame on my wishlist. Bought the controller day one, but if I ever buy the Frame it will likely be years down the line. 100€ is in the price range I don't have to think much about, but over 1000€ (I don't believe they will be able to keep the promise of not making it more expensive than the Index) not so much.

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  • [–] 6 points 3 months ago (1 child)

    Yep, it's a complete mess to try to predict. Despite both the Frame and Machine being in my wishlist and expected to come in around the same general price, I'm buying the Frame day one while the Machine may stay on hold indefinitely. I've been all in on VR since the Vive, but I've got better PCs than the Machine already, so my interest in it is more just for its novelty. Nothing about my wishlist status tells Valve any of that though.

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  • [–] 3 points 3 months ago

    Yea for me the controller solves a lot of what I need from controllers and fits right at the price I don't have to wait for, while the frame I buy when I am set for it since it's the perfect upgrade for me for a long time. The machine is on my wishlist as a console idea if I ever want it. Each are wishlist, but have a very different priority.

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  • [–] 4 points 3 months ago (1 child)

    I forgot to add it to my wishlist.

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  • [–] 12 points 3 months ago* (3 children)

    I think they truly didn’t anticipate the volume of people interested in the controller.

    If you're getting the Steam Machine 2.0, you're probably going to get at least one Steam Controller 2.0, since it's the closest thing to an "official" Steam Machine controller, and it's designed to let you do a reasonable job of playing mouse-based games (which Steam has lots of) from the couch (and the Steam Machine is aiming at the living room). The two products kinda go together like peanut butter and jelly.

    But...the Steam Machine 2.0 is deferred, so the people buying a Steam Controller now are buying one to use on a PC, either for use at a desk or some non-Valve-built living-room PC, which I think is probably harder for Valve to predict demand for.

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  • [–] 6 points 3 months ago

    Oh, I didn't think of that. If Valve did something like subtracting Machine wishlists from Controller wishlists to estimate the number of people wanting to buy the Controller to use by itself, that leaves a lot of room for underestimating the overlap. I probably contributed to this too by wishlisting the Machine despite not being sure I actually want it. If you only wishlisted the Controller, I may have taken your spot. Oops. Sorry, guys.

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  • [–] 0 points 3 months ago (1 child)

    The Steam Machine will include a Steam Controller.

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  • [–] 7 points 3 months ago (2 children)

    You sure? I don't think I remember seeing that.

    goes looking

    https://store.steampowered.com/sale/steammachine

    Made for Steam Controller

    Steam Machine comes with a built-in wireless adapter, just for pairing with Steam Controller. (Up to four with a single adapter!) This means you can pair your Steam Controller without its puck, and you can wake your Steam Machine without leaving your couch.

    I mean, they say that it has wireless support for remote power-on for it, but nothing on that page that I see says that the Steam Machine comes with a Steam Controller. They might do some bundle with a discount that includes both, and I could totally believe that, but...

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  • [–] 4 points 3 months ago

    I don't exactly know why, but I was 100% positive that the Steam Machine was planned to come bundled with a Steam Controller. Just like how any PlayStation, Xbox, etc. comes with a controller. But no, looking at the official page (as well as an archive), I cannot see any mention that the Steam Controller is bundled.

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  • [–] 2 points 3 months ago

    Maybe they are planning both, standalone and bundle. I was under the impression from the original announcement coverage that a controller would come with it, pretty sure that was said multiple places.

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    • [–] 28 points 3 months ago (1 child)

    Weird they didn't do this from the start.

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  • [–] 0 points 3 months ago (1 child)

    How do you think it would have gone differently if they had done this?

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  • [–] 4 points 3 months ago (1 child)

    Instead of having people frantically trying to beat robo-scalpers through a system (predictably) crashing through surge of demand, people would get into the queue and scalpers would have had no incentive to exploit FOMO that wouldn't exist. There probably would've still been a tech issues at the start, but it would've smoothed out on it's own instead of having people wonder for a week if they'd be able to even submit an order, hoping they don't miss the next announcement (which I almost did).

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  • [–] 0 points 3 months ago

    Instead of having people frantically trying to beat robo-scalpers through a system (predictably) crashing through surge of demand to purchase the item, people would be frantically trying to beat robo-scalpers through a system (predictively) crashing through surge of demand to put their name in a queue.

    Have we forgotten that the exact same thing happened with the Steam Deck?

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    • [–] 11 points 3 months ago

    Oh thank god, this actually is awesome. I was so frustrated for missing the original launch but this should help!

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    [–] 1 point 3 months ago

    19:00 CET they sai

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    [–] 1 point 3 months ago

    we are happy

    you are sad

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    [–] -1 points 3 months ago

    Cool I’d like mine to ship already. This launch has been rough

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    [–] -1 points 3 months ago (3 children)

    Before release, the only thing people seemed to want to do was complain about the price, and now they're way sold out. Never trust pre-release opinions I guess.

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  • [–] 0 points 3 months ago*

    On eBay, I see two listings from scalpers already up for $230 and $319.

    EDIT: Oh, there are a ton more, most about $210 into the three hundreds. Just only had two come up at the top. Search for "steam controller 2026" and you'll see a bunch.

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