Wooo. Was worried when the icon didn’t have “gamepad + touchpads” but the “ai generated render for legal purposes” did.
Time will tell on the ergonomics. But Valve know their shit and the Steam Deck is genuinely pleasant to use so I assume the size and angle should mean the d-pad and face buttons are still fully usable. Rather than the mess of a switch controller where only the tiniest of hands can use them without cramping.
Currently leaning “three steam controllers, maybe a steam frame when we know more” since I already have an HTPC under my TV.
Did they try to make it look this ugly?
Were you planning on fucking it? If so and if you can over your biases I’m inviting you over to my steamy controller orgy as soon as these puppies drop. We’ll find out exactly what these touchpads are capable of
The extended trackpads make it more fuckable, tbh.
That looks uncomfortable to hold ngl.
Steam Frame is a PC, and runs SteamOS powered by a Snapdragon® 8 Series Processor.
I’m more excited about this tbh. It’ll be quite something if Valve ends up solving the firmware problems of Linux on snapdragon powered phones.
I’m not worried. Valve absolutely nailed the Deck ergonomics. They knew what they had to do here.
Yeah, people had said the same thing about the Steam Deck’s face layout, but everyone who has actually used one loves the ergonomics.
I need to actually hold one because, yeah; I see it and it looks awkward, but I have heard what you’re saying from pretty much everyone with one. 🤷♂️
I don’t know if you can demo one somewhere. Microcenter, maybe?
As someone who loved the idea of the original steam controller but found it uncomfortable to hold, the steam deck really does feel stellar in the hand. Most similar to an Xbox controller imo. So I for one am stoked that valve just deleted the screen for the new controller here
I thought the same thing about the steam deck and it turned out to be entirely fine.
This is basically cutting the screen out of a steamdeck so I’m pretty excited for a good controller.Steam Frame is their new VR headset (not an Index successor, more a Quest competitor).
Steam Machine is their pc.
I’m quoting their post
Yeah, but they said the frame is a complete pc as well
Steam Frame is their new VR headset
And Valve literally say on the Steam Frame website that it has a desktop mode running Plasma, just running on an ARM processor instead of x86, and can be used as stand alone PC.
Not sure I wanna blow battery charge on editing spreadsheets in LibreOffice in VR but it’ll be possible.
It’s funny, I was thinking the opposite. Lol. The design reminds me of the Dreamcast controller. I remember the first time I held a Dreamcast controller and how insanely comfortable it felt compared to NES, SNES, Genesis, N64 and Playstation. Granted, modern PlayStation and XBox controllers are also much more comfortable than all of those too, so the Dreamcast one might be uncomfortable by modern standards, but I don’t know since I haven’t held one in 25 years.
I’m hoping this new Steam Controller is as comfortable as I remember the Dreamcast controller being.
It says it’s a zen 4 custom AMD chip?
https://store.steampowered.com/sale/steammachine?l=english
Edit: sorry I got th machine and frame mixed up. Whoops
It’s the all-time great PS controller, except I can’t actually hold the bottom protrusions in my hands.
What’s not to like? Just don’t hold the controller with your hands like you would normally do!
Is your complaint that your fingers do not wrap entirely around the grips or something? It looks very natural to hold to me. Like an even more ergonomic Steam Deck.
https://clan.fastly.steamstatic.com/images/clan/45479024/1ab321a5b909c722f49d45554decb171.webm
So fucking hyped for this thing. Hope the price is good.
Magnetic hall-effect thumbsticks
SEE NINTENDO?! IT’S NOT THAT HARD!!
I really liked my hall effect keyboard until a few keys decided to start triggering by themselves making the keyboard unusable
Is that common with that technology?
the og steam controller has hall effect triggers and I never heard any issues with them, some third party controller companies like 8bitdo have also used hall effect on their sticks for a while and I don’t think I’ve seen any complains.
that said, the sticks are gonna be TMR which is … slightly different magnetic technology.
Been using the 8BitDo TMR sticks for a while, and they’re great so far. There’s no super long-term usage yet, the technology just isn’t old enough yet for anyone to have 10+ years of real world usage, but it’s fantastic hardware thus far, and I have faith in it to last as long as I’ll want to use the controllers for, unlike say, my Switch Pro Controllers (which I promptly replaced with 8BitDo controllers with TMR after discovering how bad the drift was on my OG ones).
TMR, not Hall Effect
Even better
As someone who was an absolutely massive fan of the original Steam Controller (in fact I still have two of them) I absolutely love these. Yes I know they’re clearly a different design but like last time they seem absolutely perfect for my larger hands. The touchpads seem to be less of a primary focus but honestly im just happy that they included them at all especially two of them. Also USB C plus rechargeable battery and four back buttons instead of two, this is absolutely everything I could have hoped for and then some.
I really hope that with the release of this sc-controller either starts being maintained or somebody makes a fork of it that is (standalone original steam controller/steam deck/steaminput driver)
Stop trying to make touchpads happen. It’s not going to happen.
This is a PC game controller, and for some PC games, mouse input is required.
It already happened on the SD noob
They are awesome - for some games.
Great to have both!
I dont use my Steam Controller as often, but I admit that this way of making touchpad is the only way. It actually works!
It’s niche, but has its uses. As the only person who actually liked the original Steam controller, I can attest that Daggerfall is so much more fun with a controller that has a trackpad.
I’m definitely picking it up, but honestly, I don’t see the controller selling very well.
Get a Xbox controller then. What’s the point of them releasing their own controller hardware if it does nothing new compared to the competition?
My partner has an original steam controller. The touch pads are honestly pretty nice for computer navigation when you’re laying on the couch. It is a horrible option for gaming though. This new one has joysticks though, so this really might be the steam controller that works well for both computer navigation and gaming.
Touchpads on the Deck are really great for on screen menus for things like ability bars and whatnot.
Sony added a screen to their controller to create a handheld, whereas Valve removed the screen from their handheld to create a controller.
Hold up, Steam Frame? New Valve VR hardware??
AND it’ll be a self-contained headset. Want to play Beat Saber? Just put it on and hit the power button, no computer needed.
Want to play Alyx with an actually decent framerate? Just power on your main gaming computer and plug in the wireless dongle, and you can leverage the beefier GPU.
I’m excited for it.
and plug in the wireless dongle
Depending on your setup, not even that. It sounds like if your wifi hardware is good enough, you’ll be able to play over that as well, eliminating even the line of sight requirement between PC and headset
Whole gaming set, in fact. Steam Machnes are finally coming! Checking it, seems that it is going to be a powerhouse that will blow up console market.
The video of two people playing the steam deck with two steam controllers in a fast food joint. Completely natural scenario! Just casually bringing your steam deck and two steam controllers to a fast food joint. Feels like they want to copy the nintendo switch advertisements, but it’s not comparable at all since the switch is smaller and has the joycons which you can use as make-do controllers for e.g. public places.
As someone who brought my deck and 2 controllers with me on a trip with my friend, I’m the person in the advert. We were killing time waiting for another friend and we just chilled somewhere we could get food and drink and played indie games
That’s a lot of space for something extremely situational. Did you go on the trip to play video games or to do some actual stuff in the real world?
I knew we’d be waiting around for our friend to arrive so I took an activity with. It was to do stuff in the real world. I would’ve been taking my deck with anyway so I had something to do on the train journey, 2 controllers wasn’t an enormous amount more space.
I kept wondering what the shape reminded me of.
It’s the Absolute Batman logo.I’m so thrilled for a new steam controller. I was a huge fan of the original, I just wish it were built Better. I hope the new one is built well, I’m planning to purchase one as I think it will be a good controller for my flight sims
I think at this point Valve has a lot more experience with hardware/handheld design. My steamdeck is more than rigid enough, and this at least looks like a steamdeck, without the screen
I certainly hope so, the index was a promising piece of kit, never got the deck because I shouldn’t have access to my escapism simulators on mobile.
C H O N K
I’ve never used the first one but always heard good things about it so looking forward to the second one
