I still hold firm that the first steam controller is GOATed and it only failed because the world wasn’t ready for it yet.
I felt like replacing one of the two sticks with a trackpad just ended up being the worst of both worlds. You don’t get the accuracy of using a mouse and you don’t get any of the design benefits of having twin sticks. The vast majority of controller supported games are designed with twin sticks in mind. Crimson Desert is a great example from recent memory because I can’t imagine doing circular motions on the right trackpad, which is what you need to do for one skill and the fishing minigame. My thumbs are too lazy for that. But with a stick that’s easy enough to do. Overall fighting games are harder, flying games are harder, twin-stick shooters are almost impossible. Any game that requires some stick-like movements from the right stick instantly get harder to play.
I’m not hating on the Steam Controller, there were quite a lot of innovations I would’ve loved with twin stick controller. The return of the twin sticks is the main reason I’m excited for the controller. I’m also happy with the Dpad coming back because I always felt that was also somewhat clunky on the first controller. Overall I think this one might end up being GOATed.
I agree, although I believe it was:
60% society not ready for the awesome
40% people with small hands
Lmao. More like 60% of people know that replacing sticks with trackpads was an awful idea. Valve tried too hard and failed, and they know they failed by the looks of it
100% reason to remember the name.
But also:
- Only one thumbstick
- Terrible Dpad
RIP Chester
I love my steam controller, but to me it wasn’t a good replacement for controller games. Don’t get me wrong, it’s great and the ONLY alternative to play non-controller games (and I put FPS games in this category), but trying to play most games that waere actually designed for a controller always felt off. The lack of a proper d-pad made it worse for pixel perfect games like Dead Cells, and while the track pad is great for aiming by emulating a mouse and adding gyro, most games also use the thumb stick for mini-games or something that feels weird with the track pad. And yes, I know I could setup layers to solve that, but it’s just easier to grab another controller.
On the other hand, since I held my Steam Deck I’ve been wanting a controller that was the exact same thing. It works 100% like a normal controller, plus has 2 trackpads and 4 back buttons. They fixed every single issue I had with the OG controller, kept everything I loved about it, and even added some things I didn’t knew I needed (extra back buttons, capacitive gyro, etc).
It also failed because they had to stop producing it due to some patent troll.
This. Fuck SCUF and their owners Corsair
Back buttons are an obvious modification kf previous designs; they aren’t patentable.
I have it. The original Steam Controller is not really a good controller in my opinion. It has huge flaws, such as holding it for longer period of time starts hurting my hands, the missing dpad and missing second stick, and the weird sound it makes when using the touchpads.
The thing that killed it for me is that the touch pads were just terrible as replacements for the dpad and right analog stick
no
I use mine every day. Also, it never failed.
How do you use yours? I have a couple, and have never managed to figure out how to get them to pair properly to either my Mac or my Linux machine. I mean, they pair, but then I can’t really seem to use them for much.
What do you use it for? The only game I found that worked really well was Metroid Prime (after a ton of tweaking)
Every controller game, and select mouse ones. It’s especially good at FPS games over a normal controller thanks to it’s gyro.
Ooo. You can use the tilt to aim? That sounds amazing.
Yeah so you use the pads for normal aiming and refine with the gyro. It works well tho takes time to get used to it.
I hate shooters on console, but shooters on console with tilt-aiming are way more palatable for me. Only way I managed to play BOTW on Switch and Horizon: Zero Dawn on PS4.
I still have mine and I agree. Though I do like the changes on this new one to more mirror the steamdeck.
I wish I could get an original one, but the new one being in line with the deck is great because the deck is ergonomic as duck!
I have extras (used, good shape) if you’re serious and want to discuss in DMs. Not a scam, I just bought 4 when they unloaded the old stock cheap and would entertain giving you one.
Why can’t you get an original one?
Valve got sued by a patent troll over the back buttons.
Fuck SCUF and Corsair
But I just bought an original one
Not new from Valve, they haven’t sold or made any more since 2019. You either bought it second hand or from some third-party shop that just had some left in stock.
No one said new
You can get them for pretty reasonable prices on eBay. I got mine last year for like $60
Mostly yes, but it wasn’t flawless. Those trackpads are quite loud (compared to the Deck), the ABXY buttons are a bit too small and awkwardly placed, and there are just many times that I want a second thumbstick. Also it lacks touch-to-engage for the gyro but that’s a newer invention.
I think the most impressive innovation came from pairing it with Steam Input. That system is still wildly underappreciated; it’s what lets you turn the trackpads into things like custom radial menus.
There was touch-to-engage with the gyros tied to the touchpads, I still use it today. Unless I’m not understanding what that means.
Oh, maybe they added it later! Pretty cool if so. It just means you can tilt the controller without affecting the gyro until your thumbs are on the pads or joysticks. It’s configurable on the Deck.
I like the loud
FYI, Tyler McVicker said that games media are traveling for this now, including HLX / Half-Life 3. I can confirm several of the outlets I follow have sent people “somewhere”, including the two guys from Giant Bomb who traveled for the last Valve hardware event. They would have seen everything yesterday, and if the embargo lifts sometime next week, it would give everyone time to edit their footage.
I hate that the left stick and D pad have the PlayStation layout. Much more strenuous for the thumb.
I personally love that, I find the Xbox one more strenuous because of the asymmetry.
Is this thing Xbox Duke huge? I wouldn’t mind if so, less crab thumb for my giant hands.
Meanwhile I’m looking at it and it seems wayyyy too big for my tiny hands. It looks wider than the original steam controller and that is already a bit of a stretch for me
I’m excited… I probably wasn’t going to get the steam cube even before the hike in prices for RAM but if this works with Linux and is reasonably priced, I’ll probably get it. Hope it comes out soon.
Probably the only thing out of their new hardware lineup that has any chance of being released in the near future.
Only thing I want, so hell yeah
I want the vr headset but not for that price.
No I do not know what the price is.
I have an Index and it was 100% worth the price. I used to play a variety of games (Half Life Alyx, Synth Riders and Until You Fall were my favorites) and then I discovered modded Skyrim. A couple years later and my mind is still blown every time I put my headset on and get to wander around Skyrim, look up at the mountains and sunsets, stealth through caves so dark I can barely see a thing, slay dragons using realistic archery where I have to reach back to get an arrow for every shot and actually aim my bow down the arrow, sword fighting involves more than just mashing attack and block, and I can cast spells with hand gestures. I sometimes go months without playing and then wonder why I stopped when I load back into it. I have to set a timer because I lose myself in VR and will play for hours and hours. Sometimes I turn it on and just go somewhere sit down and look at the scenery or watch the NPCs going about their lives.
Index is great, I don’t regret buying it at all.
Half Life: Alyx made me ‘get’ VR. I look forward to future AAA releases.
I haven’t tried Skyrim VR. I did not know that was even a thing until now, thanks!
Here’s some recommendations in exchange:
VTOL VR is DCS where you don’t need a 50 hour tutorial to start the jet or $1200 in control hardware and head tracking (just a $1000 VR headset!).
Iron Rebellion is still early access/in development, but VR is begging for a good mech shooter and they’ve been making steady improvements.
XSOverlay is great, basically lets you access windows from in-game (I pin my Signal client, for example) just by rotating your wrist like you’re looking at a wrist watch. It’s a good way to get access to media controls/see who’s at the door without going through the process of getting out of the VR setup.
Half Life Alyx made me forget I was playing a game.
Vanilla Skyrim VR is a terrible, buggy mess. Modded it’s really good. Vanilla VR you just have hands and no body, can only equip weapons with a button, and can only have one weapon equipped at a time. With mods you can look down and see your whole body, have all your weapons in holsters that you draw from and switch between as needed (my default load is a short sword on each hip, a dagger on each forearm, and a bow with different enchantments over each shoulder). Mods also let you use the index controllers to their potential, so I can keep my hands open and to draw my weapons I literally just reach and grab my controllers like I’m actually grabbing the weapon. It adds a touch of realism that’s just amazing.
I’m playing the Yggdrasil modpack. It’s not perfect, but it’s really good. If you aren’t familiar with modpacks, the nice thing about them is that you don’t have to worry about tweaking mods and making sure they’re compatible, you just run through the modpack install and you’re good to go. I’ve found it to be pretty stable as far as crashes, I did disable a few mods related to spellcasting that I didn’t like, which you aren’t supposed to do, and that has led to more crashing but I can live with it. Just save often.
I’ll have to check your recommendations out!
There’s mods that take their clothes off too.
If you’re going there, there’s also VR porn. If you see someone on Steam playing DeoVR, they’re watching SLR.
…I mean, so I hear
If you have a friend who constantly plays Skyrim for short periods they’re playing vr porn too.
Or it’s just so heavily modded that it crashes every 10 minutes 😂
I’ll keep an eye out 👀
The real use case for vr
Yeah. Damn shame, but if they released the steam machine or frame at the moment, the price would probably have to be at the point it would ensure the product didn’t have a chance to catch on. Pity, I kind of want a steam frame.
I mean I guarantee the timing is no coincidence with the chinese ram market crashing
I’ll keep my fingers crossed! 🤞
However I kinda suspect it may be valve responding to all the gamers who have been saying they want the controller now, it doesn’t need ram so why wait to release it with the other products? I get that valve probably wanted to do a simultaneous release, but that just doesn’t seem possible any longer.
GabeN said himself the hardware division must stand on its own financially. He doesn’t want to subsidize it forever.
To keep Hardware anywhere close to the black - they have to get money coming in. The controller can drop unaffected by the Ram crisis, and recently unaffected by the illegal tarifs
Pretty sure I’m going to buy at least 2. But would want 3 or 4. I feel like it’s gonna be limited per customer and there’s not going to be enough…
🤞
I fear the price will put it out of my budget for controllers.
Usually I buy my controllers at around 30-50€
This, I fear would go well over double the higher end of that.
If you used multiple one, which did you prefer? Recently I bought a few other brands. The OG Xbox controller is my favourite but they’re always way too expensive for my taste, so I wanted to branch out a bit.
I recently went on a hunt for a cheap good offbrand controller. I bought several from gamesir 8bitdo and easysmx, and ended up landing on the gamesir cyclone 2. It’s quite good, though not perfect, because the ergonomics are not 100% my style, but it was my best option overall. I think it was like 50€.
Before that I was using the 30€ range controllers from easysmx and for their price they were good but only lasted a couple of years because stick drift.
I tried 8bitdo because everyone talked so good of them, but I didn’t like the ergonomics, that’s 100% personal though, the controller itself was good.
I also read about the Vader 4 controllers, which has good reviews but never tried it.
the controller looks good i hope it’s better than the other controllers you can get for a good price. also, i wish they would make more steam decks but i think valve said that they ain’t gonna make any more witch sucks because i wanted to buy one so i can play my steam games on the go
Steam Frame… when?
My wallet fears the answer to this question.
Me too, but I’m pretty sure I’ll be getting one.
I haven’t had a VR headset since the original Oculus Rift. I’m still salty about them selling to Meta, and after I moved to Linux it turned into a paperweight anyway.
Since that point, no new headset had checked all the boxes for features, first-class Linux support, and a vendor I could actually tolerate engaging with.
The Steam Frame is doubtless going to seem very expensive in comparison, but I see that as the price I have to pay to avoid an account on a platform I don’t want and all the associated data harvesting.
I will pay that price.
I type these exact words into google about twice a week.
The original release date was sometime around Q1 2026, obviously trump’s tariffs (illegal tax) and then AI consuming all of the RAM has messed with the timeline.
Oh and then international shipping will be more expensive due to increased fuel prices because of the Iran war.
Maybe just keeping interest fresh amongst dynamic pricing changes
There are things I like, and dislike, about the Steam Deck controls. The things I dislike are bad enough to kind of ruin the experience for me, and I’ll usually switch to an external controller to play on it.
It looks like Valve may have fixed those issues, but I still feel skeptical, about the dpad in particular.
You mean physically or the software input stuff?
Haven’t tried the steam deck, but I grew up on the DS Dpad so anything that can’t handle 8 direction input with minimal movement is a complete turn off for me.
Physically. To start, the Deck is heavy and cumbersome to play on. Resting it on a surface is pretty much a must. The grips also have too narrow of a geometry and result in wrist strain fairly quickly. These two factors also interact with the positioning of the dpad, making it feel awkward to use, like I can’t be as nimble with the inputs as I would on a controller. The dpad itself is the worst part. There is a lot of travel in the presses, which wouldn’t necessarily be a problem, except that it has an overall very mushy feel. Worst of all it does that thing that a lot of modern dpads do, where if you press in on the center the whole dpad presses in as if it’s one big button, really poor pivot.
Most of this should be solved in the controller, but I’m waiting for reviews to come out. If the dpad still has that last problem or is otherwise not good, I don’t think I’m going to get one (unless they do another $5 clearance sale).
Do you think there be anywhere likely to have one out for display so I can have a feel of it?
I really want one but if its even slightly over £40 (which it obviously will be) I’ll need to be damn sure its comfortable to me before I can justify buying it.
https://www.pcgamesn.com/valve/steam-controller-shipment-leak
14 tons of Steam Controllers appear to have just arrived in the US, hinting at imminent release date
Irrelevant but I fucking hate short tons, 12,970kg does not round up to 14 tons, cut that shit out.
B-but Metric is hard
I mean, you can just say “thousands of pounds” then, but surely we don’t need two different tons.
I really hope they will release the steam frame, but Valve is a valve. 😔
