The Steam Controller Is Valve's Third Announcement

They're going out on a limb for gaming. If it works out it'll be big, if it doesn't it won't. It's better than staying the course over many generations. Props to them for trying something new.

Keep an open mind until you try it guys.

Sorry, been reading to much /r/PCmasterrace and then showing up here. haha Seeing the same complaint over and over again was starting to annoy me. Logitech controllers used to be labeled with numbers. In fact valve might be doing them selves a disservice by not using letters later int he alphabet.

Yeah people are closed minded because they are defaulting conventions that have been drilled into their heads since they were children. You know something other people might not know, no reason to be elitist about it.

The reason for that being: There are already controllers for playing sports and fighting games, the Steam controller is not meant as an replacement for those. It's meant as an replacement for mouse+keyboard, so you can play games, that usually would never work with a controller, from your couch with a controller.

This is way smarter then releasing "just another controller" that competes with dozens of others that are already out and all do the same thing and people already have in their living room. This thing simulates your mouse+keyboard, in essence you could play any game on this, regardless of it having controller support or not.

I designed something like this maybe 6 years ago. I knew that one day something needed to replace lousy analog sticks. For me it was oval touchscreens where you drag your thumbs, and it would be so much more accurate then analog sticks.

I believe it. I'd have to look it up for specifics, but back in the day of the NES I had a controller with a track pad instead of a d-pad, and it was awesome (and that was OLD tech.)

Forget the thumb sticks-where's the D-pad?

The only thing on PC I would play on a controller is sports and fighting games and lol, I don't see myself playing Mortal Kombat, Street Fighter or any sports game on that thing.

"Finish him!" Give me a second, I must find the buttons "x" which seems to be on the left side of the controller.

Also I would like to blame the Vita for the fact that I thought the photos were the back of the controller, for like... the first 10 minutes. :P Yeah... the Vita...

@oldschool2112: can't construct a decent argument, can't be bothered to read, calling other people idiots. That's rich.

Just love how quick people here are to conclude that it will be bad. It's Valve, if they're saying it's good then I think I will trust them until I use it myself. This is seriously a huge part of their plan to take over the living room, if it wasn't better than the 360 controller then they would have just ripped off the 360 controller.

@presidentofjellybeans: This probably isn't your shit trackpads on laptops. If anything, if Valve is confident that these could be better than traditional sticks, then they at least won't go cheap on them. These are probably the best trackpads you will ever see.

I was arguing with an idiot. Won't make that mistake twice. Oops.

@rasgueado: get a wii

If it was EA releasing this controller, people would be shitting down their throats. The only reason why this controller is going to be given a chance is because Valve is producing it.

It's crazy but I appreciate that. Going for that sort of accuracy they could manage to simulate mouse movement for a controller.

@oldschool2112: No, it was absolutely too long to quote. Dial it back. Shift-arrows-delete.

Yep this is key. Controllers are way more comfortable to use in a long gaming session though so hope they get the track pad right. Valve definately has the resources to put the engineering/testing this needs to be done right.

I went from being skeptical to desperately wanting to try one. I hope the haptic feedback is as good as it sounds.

The amount of input options seems really great. Will be awesome to see custom mapping created by the community for specific games and finding something that works for yourself. It could still be a bad controller but it is a prototype and I'm willing to give Valve the benefit of the doubt. A standard pad like we have now would be pointless and boring anyway. So I'm really excited to give it a try.

Yeah the quality of the stick replacement will determine whether this thing is of any value or not. I cannot even wrap my head around how it would be good though, laptop trackpads are easily broken and generally terrible even when working properly.

It looks really weird! But Sony and Microsoft already have the 4 trigger, 11 face button, two stick ting down. I'm glad Valve is trying something different, and I'll be extremely interested to see if it actually works out.

@mithhunter55: Sure. What are the primary buttons if shoulders are already used? Click the pads, which does not sound like fun to me, the two back buttons, and what else?

I love how all these closed minded people can't see past the fact that just because some buttons are labeled A,B,X,Y that they might not be the primary buttons.

I didn't see that. I just think it is quite good that all the feedback from developers has been positive. I don't see why people are so hung up on face buttons. It has six on the back, all of which you can use while still having two thumbs on the controllers, something not possible with the current set-up. If you look at the Portal set-up on the site (an uncomplicated game admittedly) all the in-game controlls are handled by the back buttons, the face being for interface and communication functions.

It is definitely a different way of setting up a controller and as he says if he had to choose between the Steam and an Xbox, at the moment he would chose Xbox, but that is only because he has put 1000s of hours into that controller.

It is hard to imagine what the touch pads are like but one comment I read said the haptic stuff made it feel like using two large tracker balls which I think could work very well.

It is impossible to know what the controller feels like until using it but from just the layout I don't see that there is anything you can't do on the Steam that you can do on another controller. It all depends on how the track pads work. I haven't used anything like this before, don't know if you have, and the potential for programming it certainly sounds interesting and full of potential.

Valve are a bunch of clever people and I find it impossible to believe that they would have released something without thinking of all the potential ways for it to be used. It all depends on the actual functionality of the buttons and pads, I don't see any drawbacks to the layout, it is just something different than we are used to.

There are two buttons on the back of the controller. X and Y are not meant to be used the same way as on the 360 controller. Look at the Portal 2 bindings, Crouch and Toggle Zoom are bound to the back buttons while Push to Talk and Partner View are on X and Y. X and Y will be used for less important functions on any decent configuration.

haptic feedback , that sounds facinating but in previous examples it might be implimented into Portal 2 then forgotten by almost everything valve makes. Like the HL2 gravity gun application with the Novit Falcon controller which was also Haptic feedback.

A thumb will never be as accurate as moving your entire hand. That's nothing to do with games, that's just how we are built. And I don't doubt this thing will play FPS games at least as well as the ps3 and 360 controllers, because both those controllers are awful at shooters. Actually, I hope it really catches on for shooters on the PC, because I'm bad at shooters and could use the kd ratio boost from the free kills.

And it can be as good as it wants to be, if there aren't enough units for it to make financial sense to do the work no one will take advantage.

@amafi: well you have stated my point - the world is waiting for a controller that rivals the mouse. Valve has stated that their catalog will run with this thing. Given thumb-sticks are ridiculously inaccurate I want to believe Valve that this solves the FPS issue when compared to using mouse/kb . If so this controler will be revolutionary do you not agree?

@oldschool2112: I know that controllers is a huge part of game design. Specifically the 360 and PS3 controllers. What I think is that it's going to take a LONG time for this device to be relevant enough for game designers to do all that work twice. And I'm talking about big games here. The kind you pay $50-60 for. I don't doubt it'll see a swell of support from indie devs at all. But if you're building your business on that basis you're about to be Ouya 2.0.

And obviously, the ~3000 games already on steam aren't going to support the thing properly either. It'll work for a lot of them, but there are a lot where the number and placement of buttons just won't work very well.

This is almost getting too long to quote. I think the main difference here is that you don't believe controllers will be a huge factor in game design. I believe they will if a better input device then the mouse comes along (and its far from due).

This thing looks badass. It seems like it has no buttons but really it has all the buttons.. All of them. They got touchys on the back too.

Because they have the exact same button layout. Minus the casing, the stick placement and button names they're the same device, essentially. And the reason everyone goes for 360 pad support in windows games is two-fold. One is, it's fucking free with dxinput. Couple lines of code and it just works. Number two is that the 360 pad is the defacto standard for windows. Works out of the box without a driver, wired or wireless, that sort of thing. Installing the PS3 pad under windows is still a bit of an ordeal, and it does other unfortunate stuff to your system as well (takes over BT controller or USB port, making it useless for any other device you want to stick in there)

Also, we are talking about completely different things here. I'm talking about how people sit down with the controller in hand and design the interactions the game will have with that controller in mind. Shit like, they don't want you to have to do dumb stuff like pushing the left stick all the way to the left while hitting the d-pad. Or limiting the times you have to hit L1 and L2 at the same time while moving the left stick. How no game has you hold the A and Y buttons at the same time. That shit is like it is because someone sat down and thought about it early in the process of designing the very fundemental gameplay.

This thing, with the divergent button placement will not get the fruits of that labour. And yeah, Steam sells a lot of games, but not more than consoles, and I'm willing to bet that for a long time yet there will be more 360 pads hooked up to computers playing steam games than there will be steam controllers. Hence, the designers do that work once, because it works for a majority of people, and they only have to do the work once. Then maybe they think about mouse and keyboard support, but most of the time they just slap something together in a hurry (try playing any fifa game from the last decade with mouse and keyboard. That game was obviously not designed with that type of input in mind).

What you are talking about is just basic support. That will obviously be there. Along with remapping and everything else. Doesn't really negate the bigger issue of fundamental design choices made based on the layout of the other pads though. And of course, like I said earlier, maybe computers being relabeled steam machines is all it will take and consoles will disappear from the face of the earth by xmas 2015, and then developers will have the steam controller in mind when laying out the basic interactions the games will feature. I wouldn't hold my breath though.

Oh, and there's another huge dumb issue with the thing, from what I've seen some people point out. You can do stuff like map the inner circle of the right pad to mouse look and buttons around the outside. There are a million different ways of laying that stuff out. With ZERO labeling. And no physical buttons, so you're feeling your way for the jump button and accidentally move the camera. Or you move your thumb a little too far up and hit whatever, the software button you mapped to melee attack or something. Usability HELL.

@oldschool2112: Because the manufacturers need to take care of the controller support. Not game devs. Game devs can add controller support, but the PS3 controller is not created for PC gaming and that's why it doesn't work (well). Microsoft created a dongle to use the 360 controller. That's why that controller is supported. Not because game devs only added 360 controller support. If Sony did this than PS3 controller support would also be readily available.

But yeah, I agree we should give this thing a chance. But I'm very skeptical so far. Track pads sound great, but besides that it all seems... not optimized for gaming.

So if consoles have brought "a HUGE install base to incentivize implementing that support", why is there no native PS3 controller support in Borderlands 2 and Skyrim? And given Steam is THE default platform for PC gaming communities, how is it that a controller developed for Steam won't garner industry wide support?

"The Steam Controller is designed to work with all the games on Steam: past, present, and future. Even the older titles in the catalog and the ones which were not built with controller support. (We’ve fooled those older games into thinking they’re being played with a keyboard and mouse, but we’ve designed a gamepad that’s nothing like either one of those devices.)"

"Traditional gamepads force us to accept compromises. We’ve made it a goal to improve upon the resolution and fidelity of input that’s possible with those devices. The Steam controller offers a new and, we believe, vastly superior control scheme, all while enabling you to play from the comfort of your sofa. Built with high-precision input technologies and focused on low-latency performance, the Steam controller is just what the living-room ordered."

...don't you think gamers will gravitate to an input device that offers all the convenience of a mouse without the wrist/shoulder agrivation and all the convenience of sitting comfortably on a couch or chair without having to pony up to a desk?

Its your point of view that perplexes me. This is future tech - give it a chance before writing it off.

I'm skeptical about the face buttons. They seem illogically placed. They seem too far from the thumbs, but that may be optical illusion. But they sure as hell seem spread too far from each other. Most melee combat games (I play a bunch of those) require you to push two buttons at once mid-combo. I don't see myself pulling those off easily with this placement. Also, it seems weird to me how it has two on each side. So, if I use the left track pad for movement, I will only have two more buttons as an option, because asking me to stop moving for another action seems inefficient and I highly doubt that'll work nicely.

I guess the actions could be mapped to the triggers instead. Perhaps that could work, although I'm skeptical if that's the best place for the stuff I have in mind.

But I won't know until I play it. Lack of D-Pad isn't good though. Touchscreen will not make up for that properly. I suspect this controller will see an update rather quickly with a proper layout. It doesn't seem designed to optimally play the games of today. Perhaps they were so focused on making it work for strategy games that they forgot to look into other genre's.

Yes. The controller gets a fair amount of shit as it is and it's made by Valve, one of the most loved gaming companies. If it was, lets say, from a small company, it would be outright dismissed by generally everyone. Maybe I just don't have faith in the internet.

This actually sounds awesome, and seems to be a great way to emulate precise mouse movements... maybe even better than a mouse. I still think it's a huge problem that there aren't additional face buttons on the right, though. Most games nowadays need peripherals with *more* buttons, not less. I was disappointed when the xBone and PS4 didn't have a couple extra buttons (though not surprised), and this would be even worse in that regard. ...But yeah it's certainly interesting.

@leebmx: He answered a question after he posted that about not having played any 3d action game where he needs movement, camera movement and face buttons, and possibly looking into going back and trying something like that. I want to see someone playing Fifa 14 on the thing also, for that matter.

Everyone complaning about this controller without having touched it needs to read this http://tommyrefenes.tumblr.com/post/62476523677/my-time-with-the-steam-controller from the maker of Super Meat Boy. Someone who knows a thing or two about the need for responsive controllers.

@alexandersheen: you mean outright dismissed because people are afraid of new things and crave stagnation? the way things are going, especially with the "new" consoles, we're about to hit a brick wall in terms of innovation. i'm not blind and i can see the potential problems with this, but neither am i going to be an asshole and call it garbage without giving it a chance. i would personally love to try this thing, and if it ends up being a failure then, so be it.

Quickly we must rise against the machines before they completely indoctrinate us! Too late...

What? Borderlands 2 and Skyrim were designed to work on the consoles as well as PC. The work they did on the PS3 and 360 versions were directly transferrable to the PC with no extra thought or work required on the design end. They had a HUGE install base to incentivize implementing that support and it took very little to implement it in windows. That's hardly the same as designing the game to work with two radically different input methods, where one has x amount of easily reachable buttons and the other has y.

And considering there are millions of people out there with 360 and PS3 controllers playing on consoles, that the majority of games are multiplatform (of the games people actually care about). So you can design for the PC, the xbox and the playstation and only have to figure out how the controller inputs will work ONCE. The you look at the install base of the steam controller and decide if it makes sense to dedicate the resources to actually design the game to work with that as well. I'm willing to bet money that most large publishers will not be willing to do that for a long long time, if ever.

Clearly you haven't been playing the right games. I first learned about haptic feedback from listening to and reading the Codex entries in Mass Effect 1.

Personally, I think the controller looks interesting. I'm not going to buy one, but good on them for doing something different. It's nothing if not unique.