Steam Controller Demo

[VulgarDisplay]

Looks decent. It seems pretty accurate but you would still get destroyed by someone using a mouse in an FPS game.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EUlzg-fkHak#t=12

 

[imaheadcase]

Yah watching him drag his thumb on the controller made me cringe. Even trying to aim in Counterstrike.

I don't think valve thought this through.

 

[Rinaun]

Yah watching him drag his thumb on the controller made me cringe. Even trying to aim in Counterstrike.

I don't think valve thought this through.

Agreed. If valve was playing this smart, they would have already done pre-orders. This video I think will turn off a large portion of consumers whom want this all because of the whole thumb-panning constantly. What's the difference between this and a trackpad? Almost nothing.

 

[bunnyfubbles]

Yah watching him drag his thumb on the controller made me cringe. Even trying to aim in Counterstrike.

I don't think valve thought this through.

why? It looks really damn good when we consider they were showing off the strict 1:1 mouse mode rather than some software that had been developed with a controller in mind, let alone the Steam controller.

At any rate, the Steam controller is clearly intended to help PC gaming infringe upon the console space on the couch, and not to replace the keyboard/mouse on the desktop.

As a purely complimentary device, its more than doing its job it seems to me. Want a traditional controller? We have plenty of those already...

 

[imaheadcase]

That is the whole problem though, its being made with the idea they can just port pc games to it and everyone can just play games on a couch in living room with people. The idea behind consoles is they are simple devices, no one wants to configure a controller for each game.

Yes its still just a prototype, but its very hard to see them getting past the "feel" of using it for games simply not made for it. Could you picture playing a game like Titanquest or any game requiring tons of clicks? It might be great for some single player fps games, but that is about it, at least in current form.

 

[SPBHM]

looking really good, aim is looking nice and precise, and there is a lot of flexibility, I'm definitely more interested now.

That is the whole problem though, its being made with the idea they can just port pc games to it and everyone can just play games on a couch in living room with people. The idea behind consoles is they are simple devices, no one wants to configure a controller for each game.

Yes its still just a prototype, but its very hard to see them getting past the "feel" of using it for games simply not made for it. Could you picture playing a game like Titanquest or any game requiring tons of clicks? It might be great for some single player fps games, but that is about it, at least in current form.

it might not work well for every game but, future games can be made with this in mind, and old games could have some sort of optimized profile available on steam... I don't see a big problem...
also I think it would be relatively easy to emulate the xbox 360 gamepad, and most games have a profile for that?

I think this whole Steam OS/big picture/Steam Machines thing is trying to get closer to a console sure, but not exactly the same, I think this gamepad is one example, it looks MUCH better than using a current console gamepad with thumb sticks

 

[Lonyo]

Why not just put a trackball in a regular controller?
Or better yet, have customisable options so you can have an interchangable pad/ball/joystick/d-pad

 

[Nintendesert]

swipe swipe swipe swipe swipe swipe swipe swipe swipe swipe swipe swipe swipe swipe swipe swipe swipe swipe swipe swipe swipe swipe swipe swipe swipe swipe swipe swipe swipe swipe swipe swipe.........


Ugh.

 

[Blitzvogel]

why? It looks really damn good when we consider they were showing off the strict 1:1 mouse mode rather than some software that had been developed with a controller in mind, let alone the Steam controller.

At any rate, the Steam controller is clearly intended to help PC gaming infringe upon the console space on the couch, and not to replace the keyboard/mouse on the desktop.

As a purely complimentary device, its more than doing its job it seems to me. Want a traditional controller? We have plenty of those already...

I agree. It looks to be certainly better than a regular controller.

 

[Blitzvogel]

Why not just put a trackball in a regular controller?
Or better yet, have customisable options so you can have an interchangable pad/ball/joystick/d-pad

Trackball is an interesting idea but a trackpad is less bulky. Also, there seems to be more instantaneous factor with a trackpad vs a ball where you must move then stop it and it may take that few extra 1/10s of a second.

I have used a trackball with FPSs before, but in the typical PC trackball style it wasn't not very comfortable because of the way it forces me to independently move my thumb, pointer and middle fingers. I will admit that I didn't take as much time as I should've to experiment. However, in place of a right analog stick on a controller it would make more sense.

 

[robvp]

Swiping... There was another controller that tried this, the pads on the xperia play, it was so so, not really replacement for mouse

 

[bob123aka]

Swiping... And It's gone

 

[styrafoam]

Its odd that they would put the work into a solution that is still a compromise. A paddle will never be as good or better than a KB/mouse for strategy/fps type games, but a paddle is still desired for action/driving/sports types. People need both in the end, all this seems to do is get half a step closer to the KB/mouse setup while seeming to lose its paddle strengths.

 

[Blitzvogel]

Swiping... There was another controller that tried this, the pads on the xperia play, it was so so, not really replacement for mouse

It's pad were tiny, and there was no ridging to give you a better idea where on the pad your thumbs were. Part of making controls work is building software that uses them correctly.

 

[JamesV]

I was expecting those pads to act a bit like joysticks; where if you moved your thumb to the right of center of one, you would have constant movement in that direction.

Not have to keep swiping, but they were just showing off mouse-like movement, so maybe that will come about.

 

[irishScott]

I was expecting those pads to act a bit like joysticks; where if you moved your thumb to the right of center of one, you would have constant movement in that direction.

Not have to keep swiping, but they were just showing off mouse-like movement, so maybe that will come about.

They can. That's exactly what he was doing with his left thumb in the Portal 2 demo.

 

[T9D]

Looks good. I've got an xbox controller hooked to my pc. I gotta say it's really pleasant and relaxing to use while kicking back playing games on the couch.

 

[KentState]

If it's the same video I saw earlier today, it looked painful playing Civ 5 plus lacking the keyboad for shortcuts would be another negative.

 

[ZzZGuy]

*swipe swipe swipe swipe swipe swipe swipe*
That has got to go.

If moving your thumb to the very far edge of the track pad meant that the cursor kept moving in that direction I think that would go a long way to helping this controller.

 

[Nintendesert]

They can. That's exactly what he was doing with his left thumb in the Portal 2 demo.

Both pads should have been setup like that. I'm completely distracted by the swiping. I was hoping for something different, which isn't Valve's fault, they stated they were trackpads.

 

[VulgarDisplay]

Honestly valve should just release a branded Lap desk for your couch or chair. Set it on your couch where you are sitting and play the games right.

 

[Gloomy]

Sensitivity is configurable, so you don't have to swipe more than you want to. Also, individually, fingers (even thumbs) are more dextrous than the whole hand, so there's no reason why most people wouldn't be able to handle insane sensitivity on this and still have pretty good accuracy... this is the idea behind the fingertip grip, where you hold the mouse by the tips of your finger, so you can perform precise movements without moving your arm or wrist...

I think people are underestimating the potential this has. For example, you can simulate a trackball pretty easily in software. Laptop trackpads already do this, for example when you have inertial scrolling enabled, you can accelerate by flicking the trackpad and stop by setting your finger on it as if you were spinning a wheel. So if you want inertial panning, well there you go. With the haptic feedback, you can simulate notches on scrollwheels... or a trackball with notches (which sounds incredible now that I think of it). Simulate button clicking. And so on.

And it can act as a traditional controller.

Overall I still think M+KB is better, but this has a lot of positives too. There's a lot of neat new things you can do with this. What will be really interesting is seeing how it's integrated into games, rather than seeing it just behaving like M+KB. Definitely an improvement over traditional controllers... actually I wish it had been released for a traditional console (PS4 or XBone), that way it would have had more game support instead of being tacked on to a possibly DOA system with no guaranteed game integration. Oh well.

 

[Skel]

why? It looks really damn good when we consider they were showing off the strict 1:1 mouse mode rather than some software that had been developed with a controller in mind, let alone the Steam controller.

At any rate, the Steam controller is clearly intended to help PC gaming infringe upon the console space on the couch, and not to replace the keyboard/mouse on the desktop.

As a purely complimentary device, its more than doing its job it seems to me. Want a traditional controller? We have plenty of those already...

If it runs in a special machine with a gaming centric OS and controller, wouldn't it then be a console?

 

[Gloomy]

If it runs in a special machine with a gaming centric OS and controller, wouldn't it then be a console?

It's not a special machine, and it's not a gaming centric OS. It's Linux on PC hardware with a console UI on top.

 

[bunnyfubbles]

If it runs in a special machine with a gaming centric OS and controller, wouldn't it then be a console?

except its not a special machine, its a PC

the hardware that powers a steam machine is PC compatible to where we can just wipe the Steam OS from it if we want and install Windows or any other Linux distro or whatever else PC compatible OS and use it like we would use any other desktop.

and on the flip side, any PC hardware that is up to it can have Steam OS installed on it and become a "Steam Machine"