Valve cancelling orders for £4 Steam Controllers after it mistakenly sells too many
Blames "technical issue" during Steam sale.
Valve is cancelling orders for its heavily discounted Steam Controllers after it inadvertently sold too many during this year's Steam Autumn Sale.
Last week, as the sale got underway, eagle-eyed bargain hunters spotted that Valve had slashed the cost of its wonderfully idiosyncratic Steam Controller by a whopping 90%, lowering its usual £39.99 price right down to a paltry £4 (although delivery remained a not-insubstantial £7.40).
A notice on the controller's Steam page warned that only a "limited quantity" remained - which, The Verge learned, was the result of Valve's decision to cease production of the device. Controllers initially appeared to sell out rapidly, but Steam intermittently enabled new purchases, giving the impression that Valve might be regulating stock throughout its sale.
Over the weekend, however, some seemingly successful purchasers (including myself) awoke to discover a refund notification email sitting in their inboxes. Following some confusion online as to why refunds were being triggered, given the lack of clarification in the initial notice, Valve dispatched a follow-up email explaining more.
"Due to a technical issue during our recent sale," the company wrote, "we mistakenly took more orders for the Steam Controller than we were able to fulfil, including yours." It also re-confirmed that, currently at least, it had "no plans to produce more of this product", and would be unable to complete certain orders, leading to refunds being given.
"We sincerely apologise for the confusion and inconvenience," Valve's message concluded.
Customers that haven't yet been sent a cancellation email should, presumably, still be on track to receive their Steam Controllers, although Valve previously noted that it expected longer-than-usual delivery times on the device due to high demand.