Valve Reveals Why the Steam Controller Is Coming Out Before the Steam Machine

Valve has revealed why the Steam Controller is releasing before the Steam Machine, with the company pointing to the controller’s simpler hardware and ongoing PC component shortages as the main reasons behind the decision. The Steam Controller will go on sale on May 4, available in the US, UK, Europe, Canada, Australia, Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong, and Taiwan, with pricing set at $99 USD / $149 CAD / €99 / £85 / $149 AUD.

In a recent interview with Polygon, Valve hardware engineer Steve Cardinali explained why the company chose to release the controller on its own rather than waiting for everything to launch together.

“This doesn’t have RAM in it, and it’s not as complicated to start getting out the door for us,” Cardinali said. “We’re ready for it. We wanted to build up quantity so that we could try to address everybody who wants one at launch, but it’s possible that the demand for it far exceeds our expectations.”

Memory prices have been a major factor behind the delays. DRAM contract prices have reportedly gone up by more than 170% year-over-year, which has made it harder for Valve to finalize plans for the Steam Machine. Still, Cardinali noted that releasing the products separately was not entirely unplanned. He said the three products were always treated as distinct items, even if the Steam Machine and Steam Controller are closely tied together.

“From the beginning, these were all different products,” he said. “We had always thought, obviously we want them to work together well, especially the Steam Machine and the Steam Controller, they’re in a lot of ways a pair made in heaven, but we saw no need to ship the Controller at the same time as the Machine.”

He also clarified that the one rule Valve held firm on was making sure the controller would be out before the Steam Machine, not the other way around.

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