XR Weekly: Steam Controller Sells Out as Survios Collapses Amid VR Industry Reckoning - Week of May 9, 2026

The first full week of May 2026 delivered a study in contrasts for the XR industry. Valve's new Steam Controller arrived to overwhelming demand and an instant sellout, while veteran VR studio Survios reportedly collapsed after mass layoffs, underlining how punishing the current market remains for dedicated VR developers. Add in a packed VR games showcase, fresh Pimax shipping news, and Samsung doubling down on XR through its startup incubator, and it was a week that captured both the promise and the precariousness of spatial computing in 2026.

Hardware

Valve's Steam Controller launches and sells out in 30 minutes. Valve's $99 Steam Controller went on sale May 4 at 10 a.m. Pacific and was gone before noon, with a week of pontification about the gamepad's price point followed and by the morning of May 5, the Steam Controller was officially sold out. Valve tweeted that "Steam Controller ran out faster than we anticipated, and we hate that not everyone who wanted one was able to get it. We're working on getting more in stock and will have an update on expected timeline soon." This is the first retail product from Valve's 2026 hardware lineup, ahead of the Steam Machine and Steam Frame VR headset, both of which are still pending firm release dates due to ongoing RAM and component shortages. (Engadget)

Speculation builds around possible Steam Machine or Frame shipments. Valve watchers spotted a major hardware import the same week the controller launched. Valve imported roughly 50 tons of "Game Consoles" to its US distribution centers between April 30 and May 1, a higher volume than its recent Steam Deck restock orders, as reported by Valve watcher Brad Lynch and corroborated by The Verge. Speculation has it that these could be Steam Machines or Steam Frames, but Valve has yet to comment. (Engadget)

Pimax keeps shipping Crystal Super updates. Pimax continued its rolling product updates this week, with new posts hitting on May 6 and 7 alongside the broader SuperOpen promotion. Starting April 16, Pimax launched its SuperOpen event, a three-month limited-time promotion that brings the Crystal Super QLED (50/57PPD/Ultrawide) down by $200 to $1,599. (Pimax)

Software & Apps

Creature Feature & Friends Showcase delivers H3VR sequel and more. The May 6 livestream brought a parade of VR reveals. The Creature and VR Games Showcase livestream showed off a bevy of new VR games and updates coming to a headset near you, frontloaded with a very obvious headliner: the upcoming sequel to Hot Dogs, Horseshoes & Hand Grenades. The show also brought a release date for Trebuchet's open-world flight game, with Compass now having a release date on Quest 3/3S & Steam: May 28th. (Road to VR)

Spymaster launches in Early Access. InnerspaceVR's espionage adventure arrived this week. In the world of counterintelligence, where every second counts, Spymaster arrives May 7th as an Early Access title for Quest and SteamVR. Spymaster is a high-stakes action-narrative VR game filled with exciting set sequences, puzzles and humor. (UploadVR)

Crêpe Master! lands on Quest 3. Indie French developer Halluination Studio shipped its colorful beat-'em-up on May 7. The colorful VR beat 'em up adventure from indie French developer Halluination Studio releases on Quest 3/3S. Crêpe Master! sees you play as Hana, a magical girl who embodies the reincarnation of the Crêpe Goddess. (Road to VR)

Funding & Deals

Samsung expands XR-focused startup incubator. On May 5, Samsung opened applications for the 2026 cohort of its India-based deep-tech program. Samsung's India research units launched the 2026 edition of Samsung Mobile Advance, a startup incubation programme aimed at next-generation mobile technologies. The initiative, led by its Bengaluru and Noida R&D centres, is designed to connect deep-tech startups with Samsung's mobile ecosystem as part of the company's broader open-innovation push. The 2026 program will focus on a broad range of areas, including AI, XR, security, health, camera, audio and wearables. Launched in India in 2023, SMA introduced a dedicated grant funding model of up to $50,000 with no equity for proof-of-concept development. Under this model, Samsung does not take any equity or ownership in the startups for ideas developed through the programme. (Business Standard)

A relatively quiet week for major XR funding rounds. With NAB and Q1 earnings season behind us and Google I/O on the horizon, this was largely a holding-pattern week for new VC announcements. The bigger story remained the broader market context: among XR companies with their last funding round in 2025 or 2026, the median raise was $75M, more than double the $35M median for companies whose last rounds closed in 2021 or 2022. VITURE raised $200M across just two rounds in roughly six months, the fastest capital accumulation pace in the dataset, reflecting the intense investor appetite for consumer XR glasses that emerged in late 2025. (New Market Pitch)

Enterprise & Industry

Survios reportedly shuts down, leaving Alien: Rogue Incursion on a cliffhanger. The biggest industry story of the week broke on May 5. In more disheartening whispers of layoffs in the gaming industry, it seems that Survios, the VR developer that brought us a pretty fun take on a Xenomorph-infested world in Rogue Incursion, might be shutting its doors after laying off the bulk of its developers. Survios, one of VR's most senior game studios and developer behind Alien: Rogue Incursion (2024), is reportedly shutting down, as a majority of staff have been laid off. The closure has wider implications for Sony's VR ecosystem: the news comes immediately after the massive job cuts at Polyarc (Moss I & II), which had to lay off two-thirds of its workforce in March 2026. This means that Sony's VR headset is losing the studios behind its most important system sellers in a very short time. (Road to VR)

Alien: Rogue Incursion Part 2 looks unlikely. The Survios collapse leaves a planned sequel in limbo. If you've played through Alien: Rogue Incursion - Part 1: Evolved Edition since its Switch 2 launch on April 21, then you may well be eager to see how things pan out in Part 2. Well, unfortunately, that may never happen. According to a report from Game Developer, several messages from Survios team members seem to indicate that the vast majority of the studio has been laid off. Combat designer Dylan Ralston posted a message on LinkedIn to state that Survios will be "essentially shuttered." (Nintendo Life)

Quick Hits

• Valve released CAD files for the Steam Controller and Puck under Creative Commons immediately at launch, opening the door for third-party accessory makers (VideoCardz)
• Resellers listed sold-out Steam Controllers on eBay at a 200% markup over MSRP within hours (Getjar)
• UploadVR updated its May 2026 release calendar on May 6, adding the Compass May 28 release and confirming Spymaster Early Access for Quest (UploadVR)
• Reports continue to circulate that Samsung's "Jinju" smart glasses could debut alongside Android XR at Google I/O on May 19-20 (The Gadgeteer)
• Bigscreen confirmed it will ship a small first batch of the long-delayed Beyond 2 Halo Mount in June, with 10,000-unit production starting in July (Road to VR)
• The ACLU-led "Eyewear, Not Spyware" campaign against Meta's reported facial-recognition smart glasses plans continued gathering steam, with more than 75 organizations now signed on (ACLU)

Looking ahead: all eyes turn to Google I/O on May 19-20, where Android XR updates and a possible first official appearance of Samsung's Galaxy Glasses are expected to dominate the conversation.