Steam Controller

Sony added a screen to their controller to create a handheld, whereas Valve removed the screen from their handheld to create a controller.

I still have the original in perfect condition. This looks like a complete improvement to me

I have four of them, and I agree completely.
I've got 2 sitting around, never use it but it's a neat gimmick and I know a lot of folks still swear by this thing. I love how all 3 of these new things are just major upgrades to hardware from like 2016ish
- I've barely used mine too. Pretty sure I bought it the first few months they were available and never got used to the left touchpad. Feels cool. Maybe if it was left stick and right touch pad, I would use it

The real question is "does it have a way to wake a steamdeck up from sleep"

Apparently the OLED model can already do it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TNiENNEvkP
Sure, as long is you're not a steam deck LCD owner. I just set mine to not sleep when docked
- The LCD was able to be woken from sleep by any Bluetooth controller... Though today I saw there's an update that re-disabled this function. So I didn't apply it.

So fucking hyped for this thing. Hope the price is good.

I actually love the touchpads, but it weird that I'm thinking about this more in the context of a media center PC than actually playing games? I definitely wouldn't use this for all games unless the form factor was really good.

Because, trying to operate Desktop Mode docked on Steam Deck with a controller is...painful, and this controller would be perfect for jumping into a web browser for streaming sites that don't have Kodi add-ons (Kanopy and Patreon are two that come to mind).

The original Steam Controller has become my go-to HTPC controller any time I have a PC hooked up to a TV. It's great.
This is a straight-up improvement. As long as the D-pad is good, it's going to become my #1 way to interact with any computer that I'm not sitting at a keyboard for.
Even if the D-pad isn't good, I might just hack it apart and put microswitches in it.
I have Stremio+Torrentio set up on my deck, and use a PS5 controller for its trackpad since Stremio is very difficult to navigate with a controller. Still, the PS5 controller sucks in a lot of ways and I'd love to upgrade to this!
I think this will also be great for couch gaming with games that weren't intended to be used with a controller, much like the SteamDeck. The track pads open up so much flexibility.

I hope the d-pad is better than the steamdeck one, other than that I'm looking forward to it.

What’s wrong with the steam deck one? Too mushy for your tastes? I’ve never had issues with it.
- Way too mushy, can't realistically play fighting games with it, and i much prefer d-pad to analog for those.
  So far no controller has beaten the XBOne and later style of dpad with clicky switches underneath, for me.

I kept wondering what the shape reminded me of.
It's the Absolute Batman logo.

Ah, I see they went for the Duke's size and shape. Bold choice, we'll have to see how that works out.

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?

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

Magnetic hall-effect thumbsticks

SEE NINTENDO?! IT'S NOT THAT HARD!!

TMR, not Hall Effect
- Even better
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?

As a big fan of the Steam Deck something I want to emphasize here is that even if you didn't want both the joysticks and the touchpads on the Steam Controller and wish they had picked one or the other, this kind of setup means the controller has essentially the same layout as the Steam Deck which is HUGE for ease of finding custom control schemes already uploaded by the community for complex games.

I prefer joysticks+gyro over touchpads for aiming and so for me the touchpads might seem superfluous, but in reality I heavily use them for virtual menus in all of my control schemes I make for complex games with lots of controls and inputs. The nice thing is that even though I am in the minority of people in that I prefer joysticks + gyro over touchpad for aiming, because the Steam Deck and Steam Controller both have two touchpads and two joysticks, somebody who is touchpad centric can use a control scheme I make pretty much right out of the box just by flip flopping the touchpad and joystick bindings so the virtual menus live on the joysticks instead.

I think this will be one of the subtle things people look back on and credit the Steam Deck and now new Steam Controller for having, it might seem silly and extraneous to have both touchpads and joysticks but it opens up a very wide range of capability and also makes it easier for touchpad and joystck focused players to share custom keybinding schemes with each other.

Who the fuck is complaining about having both? Thats such an insane take.
I thought I'd use the touch pads more but gyro is the first thing i set up in most games.
- This is wild to me. Holding my arms perfectly still is practically impossible for me. The idea of a game using my pose and unconscious arm movements as input is positively gameplay-wrecking.
- I use them both together, touchpds for quick movements and gyro for precision.
Yeah, this is something that I've been wanting for a while now too. I flip flop between my steam deck and a steam-machine-like desktop pc with an original steam controller for a while now, and not having my control mappings translate from one to another has been annoying (but in an understandable way). This is gonna be sweeeeeet.
You say that because you prefer joysticks, but imagine using touchpad for camera movements and then going for buttons. Hella uncomfortable, something that was a plus in the old steam controller. Basically a downgrade.
- I think the easy solution here is release an identical controller except switch the location of the touchpad and joysticks. I think this would also be good for people with all different kinds of hand shapes as someone who likes joysticks but has small hands might prefer the same controller as someone who has large hands and prefers touchpads and equal and opposite for the other version.
  Idk it is a weird idea I guess but I think it makes a lot of sense if you think about it.

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.

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 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.
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.
Steam Frame is their new VR headset (not an Index successor, more a Quest competitor).
Steam Machine is their pc.
- Yeah, but they said the frame is a complete pc as well
- I'm quoting their post
- 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.
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.
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

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.

Touchpads on the Deck are really great for on screen menus for things like ability bars and whatnot.

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)

But this isn't the first Steam Controller, is it? The first one (and also the first Steam Machine) was released on 2015.

I can't find a reference to first - where did you see it?
You're right, of course. I still love my Steam Controller (and Steam Link) after all this time.
- There's no prefix in this second one, so it implies it is the first.

AHHHHHHHH I love my steam controller. I love this upgrade to the Steam Link and the Steam Controller. I am definitely going to try and get this and the Steam Machine. I hope the pricing is doable.

It really looks like that render, amazing.

Question, who uses the left trackpad and what for? Got my Steamdeck for a year and I don't recall ever using the left one. Just for left-handed players?

I use it in mouse and keyboard only games for rotary and square menus for things like hot bar keys or f1-f12 and the like. Really came in handy for finishing my first playthrough of Dyson Sphere Program.
I use it as a scroll wheel on my Steam Deck often. Scroll with the left, point with the right.
You can set it as a radial menu for various inputs. Quick save, quick load, map, inventory, decapitation finisher, etc.
I often go through the effort of mapping menus, macros, etc yo the left trackpad. It's especially good for PC games with lots of binds.
To scroll in menus or desktop, sometimes virtual menus for games requiring more buttons
Some people use left-handed controller layouts.
Question, who uses the left trackpad and what for?
Every RetroDECK user

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.

Stop trying to make touchpads happen. It's not going to happen.

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?
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.
I dont use my Steam Controller as often, but I admit that this way of making touchpad is the only way. It actually works!
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.
They are awesome - for some games.
Great to have both!
This is a PC game controller, and for some PC games, mouse input is required.
It already happened on the SD noob

Does the computer have to be powered on in order for the puck to charge the controller?

Some computers have special USB ports that stay powered even when the computer itself is off. Guess you'll have to see if yours has one or if it's an option you can turn on in the BIOS or something.
Could put the puck into any USBC charger brick too, likely.
Probably?

I really don't like the solid piece ballpin design for direction buttons. Playstation does 4 button and it's just a better design. It works great for any game but most importantly it doesn't straight up suck for fighting games.

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.