Wish Valve would make enough of something so that everyone that wanted one could get one. I wanted to get an Index headset when they launched that. I would check the Steam store page every few months, for 5 years. Every time it said "Out of Stock". It's still out of stock in France today. They design great products, but are useless at getting them produced in quantity.
Given the entire hardware world is experiencing multiple important shortages that are unlikely to improve before a while, I wouldn’t bet on it
The scalpers will probably be all over this too.
Thats a lot harder to do now they use a lottery system which if I'm not mistaken also takes account history into account along with physical address.
True but it still happened with the controller at least. But it also backfired. I would have impulse bought day one but they only just in the last week offered me the opportunity to purchase and I passed on it.
Yeah the controller didnt have the lottery system, thats why they implemented it for the steam machine and frame having learnt their lesson.
> It's still out of stock in France today.
You might look at why it's out of stock. Here in the US, it looks like they're out of stock of the base stations, the right controller (but not the left!) and replacement face gaskets. [0]
> They design great products, but are useless at getting them produced in quantity.
shrug I've little doubt that there were a great many periods between the Index release and now that you could have gotten a full set of equipment. I'm very suspicious of the claim that you never found a time when you could purchase one from the Steam Store.
The Index had the misfortune of being released during the start of The Global Plague when everyone with a sizable chunk of disposable cash found themselves with a great need for new toys to play while stuck at home... and global manufacturing got turbofucked by said plague, which didn't make it especially easy to ramp up production.
The Steam Frame has the misfortune of being released in the beginning of The Great Abandonment of The Consumer PC Market, which has just screwed the availability of parts and their price.
I'd say that neither of those things are Valve's fault, but what can I really know? They're a secretive private company, so maybe they engineered both catastrophes. ;)
[0] <https://store.steampowered.com/app/1059530/Valve_Index_Heads...>
All of the components are out of stock in France. i.e. there are 10 different Out of Stock buttons on the page.
> All of the components are out of stock in France...
Ah, this announcement from the end of 2025 explains the recent dreadfully spotty availability: [0]
What a shame you never used any of the "alert me when this shit is in stock" buttons, which are what I used to get one of my own.
[0] <https://www.theverge.com/news/817967/valve-index-vr-headset-...> [1]
[1] If you're inclined to emit some "How dare they sell something that they're not making anymore!" froth, do spare me. They're not taking your money and leaving you in limbo, they're very clearly indicating what is and is not in stock and not accepting money for the parts that are out of stock.