$99 Steam Controller leak: a YouTuber broke embargo and Reddit thinks it's too much

A YouTube channel called Techy Talk briefly posted a Steam Controller review on April 24 before the video came down, and the screenshots that escaped the takedown set the price at $99. Valve hasn’t officially confirmed it. Reddit is already calling the number too high. The interesting thing isn’t the price; it’s what Techy Talk’s slipped review reveals about which features Valve kept in the box.

What’s in the leaked review

Vice was first to capture the review before Techy Talk took it down “after about a minute,” in the publication’s words. The hardware spec the leak surfaced:

• Tracking pads on the face of the controller, returning a feature the original 2015 Steam Controller used as its differentiator. Trackpads are good for cursor-style aim in mouse-driven Steam library titles where a thumbstick is awkward.
• Magnetic TMR (tunneling magnetoresistance) analog sticks, the Hall-effect successor that doesn’t drift over time. Same mechanism Asus and 8BitDo have shipped; this is the first time Valve adopts it.
• Gyro motion controls, standard issue on premium Switch Pro and PS5 controllers.
• A wireless magnetic dongle that doubles as a charger. Plugs into a USB-A port; the controller snaps to it for top-up.
• Steam Deck handshake, so a Deck that’s docked picks the controller up automatically.

What it doesn’t have:

• No easily swappable battery. A rechargeable cell soldered in. That’s a five-year shelf-life concern.
• No audio jack. Audio routes through Bluetooth or the host PC.
• Rough-textured plastic. Techy Talk’s reviewer called the surface “slippery if you have dry hands.” Not a deal-breaker for most, but a step down from rubberized grip.

Notebookcheck’s writeup noted that the review “was only up for a minute before being delisted,” and Techy Talk’s channel scrubbed it before mirrors caught the full clip.

How the price compares

The $99 number is what put the leak on the front page of r/gadgets and r/Steam. Where the new Steam Controller actually sits in the market:

Controller	Price	Premium features
Original Steam Controller (2015)	$50	Trackpads
Switch 2 Joy-Con (each, sort of)	$99	Detachable, motion
Steam Controller (leaked, 2026)	$99	Trackpads + TMR + gyro
PS5 DualSense Edge	$199	Hall-effect sticks, swappable thumbsticks
Xbox Elite Series 2	$199	Hair triggers, paddles

So the comparison isn’t with a $60 stock DualSense; it’s with the $200 elite tier from Sony and Microsoft. By that math, $99 is half the price for arguably more interesting input options. The Reddit complaint isn’t really about the price/feature ratio: it’s about expectations set by the original $50 Steam Controller, which a chunk of the community treated as the “people’s controller” and is doubling here.

What about the Steam Machine

The Techy Talk review didn’t include Steam Machine pricing, but adjacent leaks tracking the same launch wave have. The current rumor split:

• $600 for the 512 GB model, $700 for the 2 TB, per a Dee Batch X post cited by ScreenRant and Geeky-Gadgets.
• $950 to $1,070 range from earlier rumors that Dee Batch’s post was specifically pushing back on.

If $600/$700 holds, the Steam Machine sits roughly where a Switch 2 console with comparable storage does, slightly below a base PS5 Pro, and well below a comparably-specced gaming PC. That’s the band Valve has historically aimed for, and it’s the one the phased Steam hardware lineup reads as: controller first, then a refreshed Steam Machine, then the Steam Frame VR headset.

What’s still unconfirmed

Nothing here has come from Valve yet. A few load-bearing questions:

• Launch date. The Vice piece says “imminent.” Notebookcheck doesn’t commit. Valve has not announced Steam Hardware Day or anything analogous.
• Final colorway and trim options. The leaked review showed one variant. Whether there’s an Elite-style “premium” SKU at a higher price (like the original Steam Deck OLED tier) is unknown.
• Steam Machine pricing. Until Valve publishes a store page, both the $600/$700 split and the $950+ range are rumors.
• TMR stick longevity. Hall-effect and TMR claim no drift, but the real test is two years of league-of-legends-tier abuse. We don’t have that data yet.

What this means for you

If you’ve been waiting for a Steam Deck-native premium controller, $99 is a reasonable price for trackpads + TMR sticks + gyro in one box. The 2015 Steam Controller wasn’t expensive but it was eccentric; the 2026 model is neither. It also suggests Valve is finally treating its hardware lineup as a coordinated product family rather than a series of one-off experiments, and the Framework-style modular bet is starting to look less lonely on PC.

My read: don’t pre-order on the Techy Talk leak alone. Wait for Valve to confirm features, especially the non-swappable battery (an aging cell on a $99 device is the kind of thing that turns a controller into e-waste in three years). If Valve goes with the rumored $600 for the 512 GB Steam Machine, the more interesting product to watch is the Machine, not the controller. The controller is a price anchor; the Machine is the pitch.