Valve Announces Steam Controller 317
Today Valve unveiled their third and final announcement about living room gaming: a Steam controller. The company made the determination that existing gamepads simply weren't good enough for bringing PC games to the living room, so they made their own. Instead of having directional pads or thumb sticks, the Steam controller has two circular trackpads. The trackpads are also clickable, and Valve claims they provide much higher fidelity than any previous controller trackpad. Valve also eschewed the traditional 'rumble' feedback mechanism: "The Steam Controller is built around a new generation of super-precise haptic feedback, employing dual linear resonant actuators. These small, strong, weighted electro-magnets are attached to each of the dual trackpads. They are capable of delivering a wide range of force and vibration, allowing precise control over frequency, amplitude, and direction of movement." The center of the controller holds a clickable touchscreen. "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." The design also breaks up the common diamond-shaped button layout, instead putting the A B X Y buttons at the corners of the touchscreen. The controller is designed to be hackable, and Valve will "make tools available that will enable users to participate in all aspects of the experience, from industrial design to electrical engineering." The controller is being beta tested concurrently with the Steam Machines they announced on Wednesday, so you can expect them to be on sale in 2014.
This actually looks really unusable (Score:5, Interesting)
I don't mind the trackpads, they could be alright. Maybe. But the fact that they expect you to alternately press buttons with either hand makes me feel like it could be hard to simultaneously move and act in a game.(This must be how lefties feel all the time)
What wrong with a wireless keyboard and mouse? (Score:2, Interesting)
What wrong with a wireless keyboard and mouse? PC crowd does not want a console controller, why try to force it?
Re:Ugh, cant they use a PS2/PS3 like controller? (Score:2, Interesting)
Are you kidding me? The Gamecube's controller is the best, and the Xbox's and the Dreamcast's controllers are fine too. Because they put the left analog stick in the right place, unlike the Playstation's godawful piece of shit of a controller.
Re:This actually looks really unusable (Score:5, Interesting)
Important difference here is that you have tactile feedback on your thumbs position relative to the center.
Furthermore, since the surface is clickable, it can be customized to only register input upon click-in...like a D-pad! On the right side of the controller, the trackpad 4 quadrants can function as a replacement XYBA. Mappings which are traditionally assigned to clicking a stick in, can be moved to the back of the controller.
I am cautiously optimistic about the design of this controller, it all hinges upon the execution of these ideas and the quality of construction. If nothing else, it would be a better way to play FPS and RTS games since it replaces relative input (i.e stick position relative to cetner), with absolute input (the input starts and stops in sync with the start and stop of the thumb movement).
Instead of constant movement towards a target, and having to time the release of the stick with the time of interception, you move until matched with the target and then stop moving, akin to a mouse input. I have not seen trackpad sensitivity that can sufficiently replace mouse input, but Valve is claiming to have reached unprecedented levels of trackpad precision. Really can't judge the capability of this controller until real-world feedback comes in, but at least conceptually, I can see this being a step-up from the controller input already popularized on Xbox and PS platforms.
Re:This actually looks really unusable (Score:5, Interesting)
Actually, they can be speakers:
"This haptic capability provides a vital channel of information to the player - delivering in-game information about speed, boundaries, thresholds, textures, action confirmations, or any other events about which game designers want players to be aware. It is a higher-bandwidth haptic information channel than exists in any other consumer product that we know of.
As a parlour trick they can even play audio waveforms and function as speakers."
Is Steam a viable alternative to a console? (Score:4, Interesting)
Comment removed (Score:3, Interesting)