""Valve is traditionally a software company," the listing for an Industrial Designer position reads. "Open platforms like the PC and Mac are important to us, as they enable us and our partners to have a robust and direct relationship with customers. We're frustrated by the lack of innovation in the computer hardware space though, so we're jumping in.

Even basic input, the keyboard and mouse, haven't really changed in any meaningful way over the years. There's a real void in the marketplace, and opportunities to create compelling user experiences are being overlooked.

This is an interesting perspective, and it's fascinating to hear this kind of candid language from a company as notable as Valve. This past April, Valve was looking for hardware engineers to "invent whole new gaming experiences."

But this still doesn't mean you'll be seeing the Valve Box 360 anytime soon: the company told Kotaku earlier this year that it had no plans to make game consoles""

http://kotaku.com/5940111/yep-looks-like-valves-still-making-hardware

Is it too soon to just give Valve money for whatever this might be?

@MB said:

Is it too soon to just give Valve money for whatever this might be?

yes

Even basic input, the keyboard and mouse, haven't really changed in any meaningful way over the years.

Um... Valve? That's the one thing that I do not want to change. At all. Ever. For no reason. Please don't go making motion control the only way to play Half-Life 3 or whatever you make next. I'm just about to switch to PC gaming and you Valve guys are part of the reason for that, don't turn around and leave the minute I arrive.

@believer258: Keyboard and mouse need to die for me to ever really enjoy playing games on the PC, strange that.

@Baillie said:

@believer258: Keyboard and mouse need to die for me to ever really enjoy playing games on the PC, strange that.

It is, because PC's have a thing called a USB port, allowing you to plug in whatever interface you want to it. Go get a controller or something else you prefer to solve your strange problem :P

@ShiftyMagician said:

@Baillie said:

@believer258: Keyboard and mouse need to die for me to ever really enjoy playing games on the PC, strange that.

It is, because PC's have a thing called a USB port, allowing you to plug in whatever interface you want to it. Go get a controller or something else you prefer to solve your strange problem :P

Oddly enough, the reason I dislike PC gaming is the lack of rumble. I've had it since the N64, playing games without it feels fucking weird.

@Oldirtybearon said:

@ShiftyMagician said:

@Baillie said:

@believer258: Keyboard and mouse need to die for me to ever really enjoy playing games on the PC, strange that.

It is, because PC's have a thing called a USB port, allowing you to plug in whatever interface you want to it. Go get a controller or something else you prefer to solve your strange problem :P

Oddly enough, the reason I dislike PC gaming is the lack of rumble. I've had it since the N64, playing games without it feels fucking weird.

That is also solved as a number of PC games already have rumble support for at least the 360 controller (provided you use a normal one and not the gutted PC wired version that has no vibration support last I remember). The main problem is that unfortunately not all PC developers want to code it in but when they do I definitely appreciate it. Also the vibration support isn't always for more than just the 360 controller, making it a bummer for those that don't wish to use that specific controller due to preference.

@ShiftyMagician: Yeah, but there are A LOT of games where controller support isn't native, thus playing the game with one is a hassle and usually broken.

@ShiftyMagician said:

@Oldirtybearon said:

@ShiftyMagician said:

@Baillie said:

@believer258: Keyboard and mouse need to die for me to ever really enjoy playing games on the PC, strange that.

It is, because PC's have a thing called a USB port, allowing you to plug in whatever interface you want to it. Go get a controller or something else you prefer to solve your strange problem :P

Oddly enough, the reason I dislike PC gaming is the lack of rumble. I've had it since the N64, playing games without it feels fucking weird.

That is also solved as a number of PC games already have rumble support for at least the 360 controller (provided you use a normal one and not the gutted PC wired version that has no vibration support last I remember). The main problem is that unfortunately not all PC developers want to code it in but when they do I definitely appreciate it. Also the vibration support isn't always for more than just the 360 controller, making it a bummer for those that don't wish to use that specific controller due to preference.

I'm pretty sure the wired 360 controller does, in fact, have rumble. I actually don't care at all for rumble, I usually don't notice it and when I do, I turn it off.

@Baillie , were you getting a bit defensive there? I wasn't dissing controllers at all. If you can't use, or don't want to use, a keyboard and mouse, fine - but I do like using a KB/M, especially for my shooters.

EDIT: Well, I wasn't dissing traditional controllers. Motion controls, however, can go burn in hell.

@Baillie said:

@ShiftyMagician: Yeah, but there are A LOT of games where controller support isn't native, thus playing the game with one is a hassle and usually broken.

That is definitely true mate and I am with you in wanting more common and well-made controller support (Playing Darksiders 2 on PC via a controller is pretty sweet). That doesn't require the death of another interface at all though so much as requiring competent PC developers to add what should be a simple option by now, especially since the trend of PC's connected to TV's are becoming a bit more prevalent nowadays (at least enough to warrant Valve to work on their Steam Big-Picture UI for TV).

@Oldirtybearon said:

@ShiftyMagician said:

@Baillie said:

@believer258: Keyboard and mouse need to die for me to ever really enjoy playing games on the PC, strange that.

It is, because PC's have a thing called a USB port, allowing you to plug in whatever interface you want to it. Go get a controller or something else you prefer to solve your strange problem :P

Oddly enough, the reason I dislike PC gaming is the lack of rumble. I've had it since the N64, playing games without it feels fucking weird.

That is also solved as a number of PC games already have rumble support for at least the 360 controller (provided you use a normal one and not the gutted PC wired version that has no vibration support last I remember). The main problem is that unfortunately not all PC developers want to code it in but when they do I definitely appreciate it. Also the vibration support isn't always for more than just the 360 controller, making it a bummer for those that don't wish to use that specific controller due to preference.

...especially since the trend of PC's connected to TV's are becoming a bit more prevalent nowadays...

@believer258: Motion controls aren't that bad, there are some good games with motion controls....... you just gotta dig through the gimmicky games to get to them.

@Baillie said:

@believer258: Keyboard and mouse need to die for me to ever really enjoy playing games on the PC, strange that.

Wait you want KB/M to die so you can play PC games....... Strange. get a console if you dont wanna use KB/M or a program that lets you use controllers with games that don't support them.

Linux Box probably.

@emem said:

@ShiftyMagician said:

...especially since the trend of PC's connected to TV's are becoming a bit more prevalent nowadays...

A few people I know (and myself) have been doing that for over 10 years and it's always blowing my mind when someone mentions the new trend of connecting your PC to the TV. :) It's great that people started to realise it, though.

Hehe yea true it is pretty crazy. At least when I mention this I'm saying it's becoming more common than before, rather than "hey there's this new thing called connecting your TV to your computer holy shit!"

I'm not addicted to keyboard and mouse or game pads just like I wasn't addicted to trackballs or paddles. I find the keyboard and mouse crusaders really amusing, because they act like their choice of controller defines themselves. There's just a lot of extreme emotion for a relatively silly issue.

Motion controls are not fun yet, but cellphones were also fucked for the better portion of 15 years. What if everyone just went "cellphones don't work, fuck them!" and stopped iterating back in 1992? I wouldn't be typing this post.

I doubt Valve will come up with anything that replaces the mouse and keyboard or the game pad as the gaming controller. They backed the Razor Hydra and that didn't exactly set the world on fire. We'll see what they come up with and I would like them to make a well supported Linux machine.

@believer258: No, I wasn't being defensive, it's just my reasoning for not enjoying PC games with a controller - obviously this doesn't apply to every game.

@ShiftyMagician: @living4theday258: I was being a bit sarcastic when I said I want the keyboard and mouse to die, I just don't necessarily enjoy playing games with them, don't know why, I never have. I just want more native support for gamepads, preferably Xbox and PS3 controllers. It's really weird when a game works perfectly well on a console, but on a PC it's buggy. Frustrating.

GTA III series is a prime example of this, lol.

@Baillie said:

@ShiftyMagician: Yeah, but there are A LOT of games where controller support isn't native, thus playing the game with one is a hassle and usually broken.

Blame that on the developers more than the standard input that most people use.

If someone is a PC gamer, they don't typically get held back by something like "controllers" or "keyboard and mouse". They get turned off because games will come out and they don't automatically work because PC is an open minefield that you have to tip-toe through at times to get the game working properly *cough*SAINTSROWTHETHIRDDEADISLANDSLEEPINGDOGS*cough*. That's the price we pay for platform superiority.

I cannot think of a single person at ALL that says "I don't play PC that much because controllers"...and I deal directly with this stuff on a daily basis because of my work.

As for this whole "Valve hardware" or "Steam box" thing, I'll say these two things:

1. When the fuck did we start trusting Kotaku? Isn't that still a "click this link" rag?

2. Valve is claiming there is a void in the marketplace? I'll bet that their wallets are still fat as shit thanks to them essentially having a monopoly on digital distribution via PC. = / Maybe someone should start looking at that - how Valve has created a monopoly on an entire industry through DRM. Oh, that's right. People will bitch about DRM until the name "Steam" gets involved.

@jakob187 said:

Blame that on the developers more than the standard input that most people use.

I cannot think of a single person at ALL that says "I don't play PC that much because controllers"...and I deal directly with this stuff on a daily basis because of my work.

Sure, I will blame the developers I guess. Well, you've just met someone who doesn't enjoy games where I have to use the mouse/keyboard. I have absolutely no problem with PC games having M/KB controls natively, I just don't enjoy using them, so if there's no good support for a gamepad, I don't really enjoy playing with it. I don't know why you're kind of offended by that...

@jakob187 said:

As for this whole "Valve hardware" or "Steam box" thing, I'll say these two things:

1. When the fuck did we start trusting Kotaku? Isn't that still a "click this link" rag?

2. Valve is claiming there is a void in the marketplace? I'll bet that their wallets are still fat as shit thanks to them essentially having a monopoly on digital distribution via PC. = / Maybe someone should start looking at that - how Valve has created a monopoly on an entire industry through DRM. Oh, that's right. People will bitch about DRM until the name "Steam" gets involved.

1. Yeah, I don't know. I saw Kotaku and didn't click the link because there's never anything worthwhile on Kotaku that can't be read elsewhere that won't visually harass my eyeballs. Presumably, this references the same content.
2. Don't discount Origin, GOG, Desura, etc. just because they're smaller than Steam. True, Steam does command a huge chunk of market share, but they're far from a monopoly in the traditional sense of the word. Or maybe I'm misunderstanding your point.

So they're making a USB crowbar peripheral? Sold.

I don't remember where i read it but there is an article out there where Valve goes into greater detail on their new interface aspirations.