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, 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 from the couch. Kinda go together like peanut butter and jelly.
But…the Steam Machine 2.0 is deferred, so the people buying one 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.
Romkslrqusz@lemmy.zip 4 days ago
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.
ericwdhs@discuss.online 4 days ago
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.
eli@lemmy.world 4 days ago
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.
Squizzy@lemmy.world 4 days ago
I must turn off the mails for wishlist prices now that you say it
horse@feddit.org 4 days ago
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.
ericwdhs@discuss.online 4 days ago
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.
nocturne@slrpnk.net 4 days ago
I forgot to add it to my wishlist.