This guy will have to wait for his younger brother.
It was available to buy starting noon local time. I refreshed the page until the buy option became available, but kept getting an error when submitting payment. Waited about half an hour and now it’s sold out. Ni modo I guess.
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The original was great for games that weren’t made for a normal controller. And FPS games.
the price point isn’t outrageous, but it’s not compelling when an Xbox controller can be bought for a third the price. Track-pads are nice, but people playing Steam are often sitting right next to a keyboard and mouse anyway.
As a steamdeck owner, the ability to use the trackpads to play old keyboard/mouse games without having to sit at a computer, is great. I’ve been playing a lot of Dungeon Siege and Baldur’s Gate 2, released in early 2000’s with mouse/keyboard in mind, and they both work flawlessly.
The new Steam Controller is a welcome addition because the old Steam Controller doesn’t have the same button and joystick layout, plus its missing buttons, compared to the steamdeck. So when you want to dock the steamdeck and play your favorite first person shooter for example, and game on the TV in the livingroom, there’s no controller until now that matches what you’ve become accustomed to expecting with muscle memory, from playing on the steam deck.
An xbox controller can be bought for a 3rd of the price
A used or older model one, maybe.
A new one is only $20 cheaper at $80.
Xbox controllers are bad. I have two with stick drift. The steam controller has TMR sticks. They should never drift as long as the springs don’t wear out. They also have a few other goodies. They are more comparable to the Xbox elite controller.
They don’t even have gyro. I used Xbox controllers for many years but nowadays they feel like something from ancient times.
And to think Gyro could become much more mainstream had it became a part of Xinput.
If all 3 console manufacturers had it, it’d alleviate the concern publishers have of having a cross-platform release with discrepant features, thus allowing more games to support it.But no, of course they won’t do it. Jokes on me for expecting Microsoft to do anything remotely useful to the consumer.
DualSense has gyro, but it seems like no games actually use it (steam input means this can’t happen with the Steam Controller)
Well, first of all an Xbox controller costs around 50 which is not a third of the price. Secondly the Xbox controller has literally less than half the inputs of the steam controller: Xbox controller has a d-pad, 2 joysticks, 2 triggers, 4 face buttons, 2 top buttons, play/pause buttons and the special power button; whereas the Steam controller also has 4 back buttons, 4 capacitive sensors, gyro, 2 trackpads (each of which on its own has a ridiculous amount of possibilities for usage) and 2 special buttons which are kinda irrelevant here. And that’s without mentioning the fact that TMR sticks are ridiculously better than traditional ones of the Xbox controller, or that the dongle works on a dedicated bandwidth instead of Bluetooth for the Xbox controller (because the dongle is sold separately I’m not considering it here, otherwise you need to add 20 to the total and then it’s DEFINITELY not a third of the price) so latency is much better.
Also, I’m not near a keyboard and mouse most of the time when playing, as I usually play on my TV. If I were near a mouse and keyboard I wouldn’t need a controller to begin with.
They did a hardware launch perfectly for the Deck - Account of minimum age needed, and a queue to buy as devices became available. Why the hell did they go with the old, shit version that only serves scalpers that use bots to scoop up every item?
So headlines will say “sold out in minutes!!!” and create FOMO for the second wave. That’s my guess at least.
Why would you assume that is Valve’s reason
People like to add reasoning to chaos. Everything has to be planned out for some people instead of life happening and businesses do what they do naturally. Take advantage of situations when they can and make money. I like valve and plan on getting a machine or deck when they are restocked. I think it’s normal supply and demand with this one.
This doesn’t really seem like Valve’s MO
Practically there wasn’t really a difference with the Steam Deck. You still had everyone rushing at the same time to get the deposit in. People got errors during the check out, just like this time and scalpers popped up immediately as well.
Sure, you might have had a few people less, trying to buy it, if you restrict by age, but the controller was announced last year. Do you want Valve to sell the first controllers only to accounts that are older than 6 months or a year? Or do you go by the time the review embargo was up, which got broken because a few reviews leaked early.
People got errors during the check out,
And? With the queue, people were able to continue submitting orders as things calmed down. There will always be a rush to be first. The queue handles it better by not outright denying those who didn’t make it in right away. This also reduces the FOMO that funds scalpers’ abuse of the system.
As for account age, it doesn’t really matter when it is set at - any limitation reduces the number of bots able to spam real users out of a purchase. Admittedly, that only really helps if there’s also a limit on number of units bought, which I don’t think was implemented this time, either, for whatever reason.
I really expected them to make some better system than ‘just hit buy until you’re lucky’
There was no queue for the Deck, I mean, there was, but that came after. Everyone was stuck in the same screen as Monday hitting refresh until we were able to get through. I started trying to buy mine on the dot and only managed to get it over 15 minutes afterwards. I didn’t get into the first batch because of that.
The was absolutely a queue.
Source: I was in it.
Yes, but getting into the queue had the same issues as the controller did now. I was also in the queue and it took me 17 minutes to get in it, which made it so that my deck wasn’t on the first batch even though I hit purchase the second it went live (as you might remember we had to pay a small fee to get in the queue, and processing those payments overloaded the servers like now). So, like I said, there was no queue, that came after you made the payment which put your name in the queue at the time you paid, if that’s your definition then the Steam controller also has a queue (assuming they prepare and send the orders in order).
Hey, at least you didn’t camp in front of the store and waited for hours in the freezing cold to go home empty handed. That’s how new hardware releases used to be. They haven’t restocked the Steam Deck in months but they will restock the controller soon, I believe.
Ni modo, we, ahi a la vuelta
Ni modo, we, ahi a la vuelta
… en el inicio me parecio chino.
Sos chileno?
Probablemente mexicano
puede ser, soy extranjero. cual region habla con “we”? pense que era una version corte de weon.
Si mexicano, del norte, algunos cortan el wey/güey.
bueno, gracias por informarme y tomarlo con humor.
Ah, one of the dozen people who actually liked the original Steam controller! A rare sight indeed.
why is today reminisce about projector day?
I used the OG steam controller when I had a projector setup, I’d turn my office chair (that I used at home) around to look at the wall instead of the computer and use the virtual keyboard/mouse for films or watching stuff, or even playing games. Although it did take a lot to adapt to some which I preferred to use a regular controller. I forget if it was Just Cause 3/4 I played the shit out of with the steam controller or something else.
I loved my OG steam controller! I wished I had bought more than one when it died 7 years later. Thing was bomb proof. Never had any other controller last that long say for anything built after the N64 anyway.
It took a lot of getting used to. So great for pc games.
Hoping the new one is just as durable. I guess it’s reparable too!
Bomb proof is not how I’d describe the OG steam controller. Maybe a bomb? They were not built well.
My OG controllers 7 years of service speaks volumes against the PS4-5 longevity of 1.5 years. Dont know about the xBox as I absolutely hate non symmetrical joysticks.
I’ve had quite the oposite experience. My PS4 controller never gave me any problems for the 6ish years I had it. But the OG steam controller is the only controller I’ve ever broken. I like to think I treat my stuff well because I’ve never had any issues besides stick drift on any controller I’ve ever owned. But in the limited time I used a steam controller I managed to break it twice. After the second time I just got rid of it.
Like 6 months ago I found one at a thrift store and it’s rough too. I should dig it out before the new one arrives.
How did it die? I’ve never had any problems with mine because I baby it.
For me one of my controllers shoulder buttons failed. I tracked down the switch and soldiered on a new one. On another one of the back buttons broke and I had to print a new back plate for it. Also on my heavily used steam controllers the stick is now getting drift. But I have 4 of them. Two still new in box.
I also could not get a new steam controller and I really want one.
I actually didn’t like it very much. Had to dig it out of a drawer for this photo. The face buttons are in an awkward position and the left trackpad is a terrible D-pad substitute. But I loved the gyro, and if it didn’t invent grip buttons it was my first exposure to them at least, and both MS and Nintendo liked them, too, since the Xbox elite controller and switch 2 pro controller have them. I saw the potential and looked forward to Valve improving it, and by all accounts this new iteration is an improvement.
I’m also a sucker for mold-breaking attempts at better ergonomics. I own a Twiddler. Still can’t get the hang of it, but nothing ventured nothing gained.
Exact same, I loved the features but it just wasn’t very comfortable in my hands. The steam deck feels way better to me, and the new controller looks like that minus the screen, so I’ve been super excited for this.
One of the things I did like about the original was actually the grips. I also loved the Gamecube style triggers, though I wish they had the same amount of travel as the GCN.
That’s interesting. The comfort was the number 1 feature of the original controller for me. The deck is the one hurting my wrists.
I’ve heard a lot of other anecdotes from people who found the og controller really comfortable when others weren’t, so you’re definitely not alone there. Personally, I was constantly readjusting my grip but could never find that illusive sweet spot, so after awhile I’d start straining and cramping. I had a couple bumping around for a few years that I pulled out occasionally but I eventually sold them on eBay when their prices skyrocketed and mine were just collecting dust.
I guess it depends on the shape and size of your hands. For me the Steam controller sucked, the xbox controller fits much better in my hands but also isn’t quite right sometimes.
The old one was great if you just dropped the idea if twin sticks. I switched to a flick stick like setup without the stick and it changed the whole game. It only became unusable after I got the steam deck. I can’t live without the touchpad menus.
Oof. That’s rough. But given how insanely profitable these ~90 minutes must have been for Valve, I’m sure they’ll be back in stock in a few weeks since none of the components seem to have supply issues.
I managed to get one by just spam-clicking the continue button for about two minutes. I know, I’m part of the problem.
Same except for about 20 minutes, and that’s after wasting like 5 minutes looking for my wallet lol, so apparently I bought one of the last ones in stock
I knew the inventory would be sold in minutes, so I prepped. I loaded 150 EUR into my Steam wallet in case the 99 didn’t include taxes, I double checked that my shipping and billing info is automatically filled in, and I made sure to be at my computer one hour before the release time just in case I fucked up the time zone conversion.
Same here but with a 100. Had to spam click on payment but it went through after a couple of tries
Was 100 enough? Mine came out to like 106 or something, with tax
In the EU prices have to already include tax, so steam prices are exactly what it costs at checkout
Gotcha. Must be nice.
Looks like this in the end basically. They just reverse engineer the price so the tax gets it to the target price.
I actually got kinda lucky in that respect, I learned last week that it was coming out today, but I didn’t know when, and I stupidly didn’t set any reminders or anything. Thankfully I happened to remember the sale this morning and was able to find out the time it started literally 10 minutes before it went live.
I never do that because there’s not much I need enough to commit that much, but also because I’m worried that the next week thirty of them will show up on my doorstep and I’ll realize I’m broke.
For me, the error was popping up before the payment confirmation screen, so it wouldn’t have been possible. Spamming the button worked for me.
But shit, if I did accidentally buy several, I’d just offload them at MSRP, probably to people on this site that couldn’t get one.
Maybe they would have lost money overall. The store being down for 45 minutes, is not good fo business.
While true, they still sold out.
They certainly did.
I managed to get one by just spam-clicking the continue button for about two minutes. I know, I’m part of the problem.
I tried that too but stopped because I thought it might think I was a bot.
They’ve released more in waves with other hardware. Just keep checking on the hour for the first few hours, keep subscribed to reddit/Lemmy subs of steam. Or stay up till 10pm, midnight and watch again tomorrow at the same time as this release.
I retired the payment for about 15 times with 2 in my order basket, then it worked and should be here next week.
Anaeijon will receive 30 controllers by next week
My quest to not ever have one is right on track.
https://gitlab.steamos.cloud/SteamHardware/SteamController
You can 3d print your own and play pretend!
Just give it a week and they’ll be back in stock.
Whats the big deal with this controller anyway? I dont get it.
It has trackpad which allow you to play KB+mouse games very fluidly. Also they can be used to add radial or grid buttons to any game.
It has TMR sticks which means no drift and less power consumption.
It has a gyro.
It has 4 back buttons.
It’s fully compatible with steam Input so you can do crazy mappings of every single input.
It has capacitive sensors on the thumb sticks and handles so you can use that as input or modifiers.
It uses a dedicated dongle that has a latency comparable with plugged device according to some tests.
It also connects via cable or Bluetooth.
It’s very reparable friendly and Valve will be offering replacement parts.
Ooh I see. Im just always using mouse and keyboard like a nerd so Id probably rarely use this stuff. Thanks tho!
It’s so good if you ignore the price, the symmetric thumbsticks, the awkward trackpads and the fact it only works on Steam games.
It’s so good if you ignore
the price
Which is fair considering the features
the symmetric thumbsticks
Which some of us prefer.
the awkward trackpads
Which are the biggest selling point of the controller, if you don’t want trackpads an 8BitDo has almost the same features.
and the fact it only works on Steam games.
That’s not a fact, in fact it’s quite wrong. The controller works outside of steam normally, it’s just that it’s mapped to common desktop inputs which are less than useful for games butake total sense in a world where it’s meant to be used plugged to a PC and you might need to click your way through to open Steam. But there are open source programs to map the inputs to a controller which is essentially what SteamInput does. At least that’s what the OG controller did and from the reviews of the new one seems to be exactly the same.
And before you say “but you have to install a third party tool” that’s also true for other controllers if you want full features.
I dont think it only works with steam games
Dude, it’s just a piece of plastic. You can wait a bit.
I still have one I never used. You can buy mine (I’m in the EU though). Send me a pm
But know this isn’t the new one. It’s the same as in the picture, which is years old.
I genuinely don’t understand the hype beyond valve fanboyism. They already released a steam controller years ago and it was actually terrible, like there’s a reason no one else has even bothered to try and copy the track pad controller gimmick, because it’s just bad.
The original controller was like a concept car, lots of new ideas but not every one was guaranteed to stick. Plenty of them did stick though, like grip buttons and gyro control. The new controller is a more conservative iteration that takes what worked and drops what didn’t while acknowledging why the industry converged on the standard button layout all the way back in the late 90s. That’s exactly the sort of innovation I want to see.
Gyro control is still just a gimmick, but grip buttons are decent I guess.
But it’s still combining a controller and a kbm and ending up being worse than either one individually. And there’s only a very limited niche where a steam controller could be better than either on its own.
The lack of twin thumbsticks are what killed the original.
This one is better, but aside from better trackpad placement, it doesn’t offer a lot above the PS5 controller, which a lot of people already have.
Still, they sold out, so mission successful I suppose. I’ve no doubt the same thing will happen when I try and get a Steam Frame.
The original controller is pretty awesome. It was also really really cheap. I love them because it’s the only controller for playing games that were not designed for a controller.
Not sure if you’re trolling, or have been living under a rock. This new controller is the same as the Steam Deck layout, which has been extremely successful and well received.
The main failure of the original controller was the lack of two thumbsticks (just like the PSP). While the track pads made a lot of PC games playable with a controller some games were worse with one thumbstick.
This controller fixes my main compliant, has a dedicated d-pad, and what looks like better track pads. So it’ll be perfect for playing around 90% of games with one controller.
This. The original Steam Controller did not meet the de-facto standard baseline for controller layout established by the first DualShock[1] that games have learned to expect and build their control schemes around.
The Steam Controller 2 does have everything in that layout. It’s modeled after the Deck’s layout, which is quite good.
Ignoring the analog button - which is not part of that “standard” because the software does not even need to acknowledge its existence - and the vibrations (which many controllers have, but are not required for input to work) ↩︎
The original controller was great for its innovation. Especially when you got used to it all.
However, the build quality was very lacklustre. The back paddle on mine died in about 200 hours of gaming. After I fixed that the shoulder button went after another 100 or so hours. Fixed that. But within about 500 hours it was totally dead.
Whereas the 2nd hand ds4 I got from eBay that I fitted with my custom made back paddles gave me 2000 hours of rocket league before I had to do any tinkering.
I did over 4000 hours of RL in total and only had to replace the left thumbstick and put o rings over the shoulder button internals.Do I want the new steam controller, yes. Would I buy one, no.
It’s like trackball mice, it just takes practice to get used to. Next to no one outside logitech makes them either but they are still genuinely good if it’s what you need.
