The Steam Controller Is Valve's Third Announcement

Because they're a software company who has never made a single piece of hardware in their life, and assuming that just because they make good software (sometimes after serious amounts of iteration) they can easily make a good piece of hardware is the same mistake that tons of software companies have done countless times before to disastrous results? This should be obvious to anyone who has paid attention to the history of this goddamn industry.

People keep forgetting that there are two buttons on the back of the controller. You could probably use those + bumpers + A and B for a six button fighting game. It would be very different from how you would normally play a fighting game but i think it could work pretty well with some practice.

I don't think I like the way that looks at all, but hey, it could feel/work pretty good. I usually adapt to new controllers pretty fast. I have no idea if I will ever buy/use any of this Steam stuff or not, though.

I remember back in the day when the thought of joysticks on a controller was completely absurd. You naysayers should keep more of an open mind on this.

I am really curious how the haptic feedback works when paired with an Oculus Rift. I bet there are interesting things that could be done with that.

Okay, so I've used a bunch of present-day touchpads, and there's no real reason this thing won't work on that front. I'm just weirded out by the button placement. This being Valve, I can't imagine they're going to rush something out that they don't really know if it works okay. Whether people take to it or not, is anyone's guess, but I can see how this works for existing controller games, and even for some rudimentary mouse and keyboard stuff.

Best Divekick controller ever.

I like the idea. Surprised at the reactions, but that just goes to show how stuck we are with current designs. Even if it doesn't take off, I'm glad to see someone (with ability) try to take a swipe at going in a new direction.

If the haptic feedback can build little standing waves in the surface of the pads that could be really awesome and work pretty well.

It better have analog triggers tho or they can shitcan the whole idea.

I am hyped as fuck about the super sensitive haptic feedback. I really want to use one of those things so bad.

Sounds really really awesome. I'll believe it, when I tried it for myself though. Anyways - for the most parts, I don't think Gaben & Co. would do something stupid. So there's that. I guess it's what I'm looking forward to hearing about the most.

Hands-on time can't come soon enough!

In addition to all of that, the controller features a clickable touch screen in the center, and is designed to be entirely "hackable," in that Valve plans to "make tools available that will enable users to participate in all aspects of the experience, from industrial design to electrical engineering."

They time bombs like this for a reason.

Wouldn't mind trying out this wacky looking controller but now I'm so used to the dual stick controller (wired 360/pc controller) for most steam games that take controllers, not sure why I'd just not stick with what I've been using.

It looks pretty bad, but who knows. it might work a lot better than traditional controllers for FPS. The thing is though, I can't see this being used for anything more than FPS. I would still prefer to have a stick when playing action, adventure, RPG, etc. AKA my favorite genres.

But really though, the button placement is a mess. If you needed to press X or Y while walking, you'd have to stop walking.

(O__O)

I have to say. I have an old PC and have been thinking about rebuilding. I am pretty much uninterested in the new console generation.

All of these Steam announcements have been totally fucking exciting. I CAN NOT WAIT! :)

I don't even know what to think.

What to begin to think.

I feel like it's staring at me though.

Color me interested. It something we've not seen before and I for one want to give it a go.

Who's with me?!

@amafi: You don't necessarily have to be incredibly cynical about this. Sure it's not going to be used like a competitive gaming controller or anything like that and once again we don't even KNOW yet that if its not going to be great at anything, you're already dismissing it for other games as well when its not even out yet.

This looks perfect for many RPGs. The extra button that the middle screen makes could be shortcuts for everything without having to go into a menu.

"In the center of the controller is another touch-enabled surface, this one backed by a high-resolution screen. This surface, too, is critical to achieving the controller’s primary goal - supporting all games in the Steam catalog. The screen allows an infinite number of discrete actions to be made available to the player, without requiring an infinite number of physical buttons.

The whole screen itself is also clickable, like a large single button. So actions are not invoked by a simple touch, they instead require a click. This allows a player to touch the screen, browse available actions, and only then commit to the one they want. Players can swipe through pages of actions in games where that’s appropriate. When programmed by game developers using our API, the touch screen can work as a scrolling menu, a radial dial, provide secondary info like a map or use other custom input modes we haven’t thought of yet."

If the game implements support you could for example use it to browse through something like the favorite menu in Skyrim without having to pause the game.

Why do people default to skepticism, do you really think Valve would release something unless it was absolutely tested and proved to work? Give a bit of credit where it's due, at least they're trying something new.

Between everything that Valve has announced this week and AMD's crazy pile of stuff they rolled out at their event the other day it's been a pretty crazy time for the PC.

Do you play character action games? Sports games? The button config on this thing will not work with those games. It should be obvious to anyone with eyes and any experience with a couple really badly designed game controllers. Sticks might be fine, but placement of buttons is kinda important.

Well, I'll reserve judgment unti...nope. Can't. That thing looks fucking terrible. Valve needs to stick to what they know.

thumbsticks that are also speakers? awesome.

This is fucking awesome. Haters can go jump off a cliff or whatever.

OH MAN! If this works like I think it does... this could change EVERYTHING!

Sure, there's no D-pad, and no decently placed face buttons... but think about how we play modern games with controllers (3rd person action games, first-person shooters, etc.). Most of it is done through the two sticks and the shoulder buttons. You only ever use the d-pad or the face buttons for small prompts and context sensitive stuff. In that respect, the center face buttons could fill the same role.

Now, combine that with all of the haptic feedback and the increased sensitivity of the pads, and I'm getting SUPER excited.

The thing will likely be horrible for classic, traditional, 2D platformers... but in terms of all other modern games, I feel like it could work so much better than anything else out there currently. Super excited to get my hands on one of these.

@vigorousjammer: Yes, I love playing my Devil May Cry's and God of War's and stuff with just the shoulder buttons.

I dunno, I saw the Reddit thread of this announcement and 99.9% of the comments were "fuck this shit." I'd like to think the community here is more level-headed and giving them the benefit of the doubt, which it seems like based on the majority of the comments.

Cost?

This looks weird as hell... but their confidence in the precision of the track pads makes me interested. Looking forward to hear first impressions

Where's the freakin' jump button?

Wow I thought that was a picture of the bottom of the controller.

I think those sensors look cool, maybe even an improvement over analog sticks, but they're no replacement for face buttons. And touch screen stuff is never as responsive as a proper button.

What an abomination

Looks like shit.

This company has a very creepy following.

Do not want.

What happens if you sweat?

Totally thought that photo was just the back of the thing.

Indeed. There's really no difference between the Steam fanboys and the Nintendo ones. It's actually amazing how willing so many people are to ignore the potential pitfalls of this thing.

Really curious about how this works out. Sometimes I game on my laptop without a mouse, and it is not ideal. But I can't use the 360 controller because the left analog stick location hurts my wee little hands... so I'm very into the idea of a controller without sticks that is functional.

@dr_mantas said:

I believe it was Gabe Newell who talked about how within the next couple of years PC performance is gonna be at a point where your PC can comfortably run two, three, four or more games at once. Heck, my three year old PC can already run my wife's Sims 3 on one screen while I leave WoW running on the other.

The support for streaming games from your Windows PC to a SteamOS system is another step in that direction. I envision something where I'll have a high end PC (call it the home gaming server) without any screen somewhere in the basement and then cheap SteamOS Boxes + Controller in the livingroom, kids room, bedroom, heck on the toilet that will stream content from the high end PC.

Those SteamOS Boxes could even come in the form of something like those Acer Aspire All in One screens with buildin computer. Or maybe like those $50 Android Sticks that you plug directly into the HDMI port of a screen. After all Android is Linux based just like SteamOS and all it would have to do is stream the picture from the high end PC.

For those of you who think they should stick to analog sticks, why? We already have the xbox and the ps3 controller on the market. Why design something that already exists? This looks like it's suppose to replace the mouse + keyboard.

@devil240z: the bottom is where they hide hl3

Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmkay. Welp. I'm kinda excited about all of this. Even if I think some of it is wildly and emphatically dumb. THINGS are happening. Shake this industry up some. Clear the cobwebs. I support everything in that direction.

I agree. When I first looked at the photo I thought it was the stupidest shit ever... then I thought about it a bit. And read their description. And... yeah, sorta, maybe, they might have something there. The sensitivity problems with analog sticks is the set friction and throw distance, the way the whole assembly functions it cannot be as precise as something more directly controlled. You cannot, for instance, perform a rolling swipe of an analog stick in the same way you can with a mouse to rapidly shift the camera a large distance. If a trackpad like setup happened to be designed in such a way as to be adjustable enough, natively, and depending on the game... maybe. :/

They need to change the button layout, though. That button layout is pure trash. I don't need hands on to know that.