New Steam Controller reportedly $99
As reported by Vice, it appears that a review of Valve's new Steam controller was shared early to YouTube by the channel TechyTalk before getting pulled from the platform—but users quickly screen recorded the review and shared it to other sites, like Streamable. The review revealed the new controller's MSRP: $100 ($99, but come on).
That definitely feels expensive looking at it, but compared to the wider field, it positions the Steam Controller at the more middle/high end of the pack, like 70th percentile. Here's some of the prices for the Steam Controller's competition, pulling from the three major console manufacturers' first party offerings, as well as our Best Controllers buying guide, and arranged from cheapest to most expensive:
- GameSir Nova Lite (PCG "Best Budget"): $23
- Xbox standard wireless: $49-$70
- PlayStation DualSense: $74+
- GameSir G7 Pro (PCG "Best Overall"): $80
- Switch 2 Pro: $90
- SCUF Valor Pro (PCG "Best Wired"): $110
- Xbox Elite Series 2: $158-$200+
- PlayStation DualSense Edge: $200
- Razer Wolverine (PCG "Best High-End"): $200
It's a relatively small sample size, but reflective of the current controller market in my experience: You've got the sub-$40 or $50 budget selection, a mid-tier of $50-$100 premium controllers that include the first-party console options, then a bit of a gap before that tryhard esports $150+ bracket.
The Steam Controller slots in right at the top of the mid-tier, missing some superpremium features like the 8,000 Hz polling of the Razer Wolverine, but offering some niceties you don't see from the big three console manufacturers, like its track pads and Hall Effect analogue sticks—the big three have been confoundingly slow to adopt the latter technology.
As a final point of comparison, the OG Steam Controller was $50 (really $49.99, but come on) back when it launched in 2015. Adjusted for inflation, that's about $70 today, and I think you'd get laughed outta the room if you tried to charge that for a Fisher Price-feeling, owl-faced doohickey with one analogue stick, tiny, mushy face buttons, and two double-A batteries for power—much as I loved my original Steam Controller. RIP, I left the batteries in without using it for a long time and they burst.