Valve’s new Steam Controller officially launching next week

Following a wave of leaks over the weekend, Valve officially confirmed its launch plans for the Steam Controller last night. The controller is indeed launching next week, but it will be a pricey purchase compared to Valve's original gamepad. 

While Valve's original Steam Controller launched at $50, the new one, which does have a number of major upgrades in design, features and material quality, will launch at $99 (£85) instead. The controller will be available starting on May 4th in the US, Canada, UK, EU, AUS, Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong and Taiwan.

Following the launch announcement, one of Valve's hardware engineers told Polygon in an interview that it made the decision to launch the controller early as the product is not impacted by the ongoing consumer RAM shortage.

The Steam Controller ships with a dedicated wireless charging puck, alongside a standard USB-C connector, magnetic thumbsticks, back-paddle buttons, improved shoulder and trigger buttons, an upgraded D-Pad compared to the Steam Deck and as much as a 35-hour battery life – a huge improvement over the similarly priced DualSense controller. Like the Steam Deck, the Steam Controller also has dual trackpads which can act as mouse controls, and Gyro controls built-in too.

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KitGuru Says: I was originally planning to wait and get one of these with a Steam Machine but unfortunately that won't be possible. There is still no word on when Valve's other hardware products will launch. 

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