The Steam Controller!

[rawr]

So you probably have seen Valve putting the steam controller up for pre-purchase!
Before discussing the video let's look at the history of the steam controller. Valve has put a ton of work into this thing. As with many of their other (successful) products and services, this project started as a vision. They wanted to take PC gaming to the living room - the "steam machine" initiative (which I will address another day - spoilers: I don't have high hopes). But they realized that the traditional controller had its limitations, and wanted to translate the functionality of a mouse and keyboard into the form factor of a controller. What we have now is the final culmination of their work, what they had delayed their steam machine release for-

The first prototype. RIP touchscreen

The second iteration, after taking criticism from various testings. Notice (although it's goddamn obvious) the removed touchscreen, and the added buttons.

The final model. Notice that the D-pad has been replaced with an analog joystick (this is important!). Also notably the left trackpad now has a cross-shaped indentation - however the right trackpad is now smooth.

It's being released (for those who preorder) on October 16, at a price point of 49.99 freedom units.

This makes or breaks whatever Valve plans to do next.

 

[rawr]

People have been discussing the video in quite some depth. At around 0:53, the user flicks his right thumb in order to look behind. It looks like at this point, he has flicked his thumb and then put it down again to the stop the motion - emulating a trackball.
If you don't get it, here's a nice analogy from reddit - it's like scrolling on a phone. Normally you will have 1:1 tracking. But if you flick the screen upwards, you see the webpage flying by. But once you put your finger down again, the page stops dead.
If this is the case with the steam controller, this could be a game changer for FPSs and perhaps 3rd person games too - you will get the precision of a trackpad, but have the ability to drastically increase speed when needed (of note are the people who use trackballs to play counter strike/dota and perform well).

At 0:37, we see the on-screen keyboard. It looks surprisingly natural to use.

At 1:04, "competitive game" is mentioned, even though it's a single player game onscreen It will certainly be interesting playing counter strike on this thing.

 

[PlayfulPhoenix]

I'm hopeful that this controller is good enough, but I remain skeptical until people can review it after some quality time using it. Getting games designed for keyboard and mouse to work well on a controller - let alone precisely - is nothing short of a herculean task

 

[Phuncz]

While I was sceptical about FPS games translating to the consoles with just two analog sticks, it showed people still being able to adjust after a long time. While it's nowhere near the precision of keyboard and mouse, it can work. If this allows even more analog precision, I don't see how this will fail. Since this is for couch-gaming and keyboard + mouse is still an issue, I don't see an easy way out of analog controls replacing mouse and keyboard movements. Although Corsair believes differently:

 

[EdZ]

I was considering one, but dropping £60 on a controller (or even more if ordered directly from Valve) without using one first is a no-go.

 

[rawr]

£60? If you order from Valve directly it is £39.99 + around £8 shipping, iirc.

Addressing the Corsair Lapdog, I think it's a very poorly implemented solution. There are two other companies doing this, far before Corsair have: Roccat's Sova and Razer's Turret.

Sova has an integrated 60% keyboard, whereas the Lapdog uses a docking mechanism to hold a regular tenkeyless K65. This is problematic because the k65 is quite bulky - by integrating the keyboard you can shed a lot of the unneccesary parts. Furthermore a tenkeyless seems unneccesary in a situation like this, a 60% gives far more useful mouse space (which is the main limiting factor of these couch gaming solutions.

I like Sova because it gives you a much larger mousepad. Like, I could play counter strike on that thing.

The Razer offering is arguably inferior to both, as it is not mechanical, has no wrist rest, and has a very small mousepad area. You cannot also use your choice of a wired mouse, as with the other two. However it is a lot more compact, and can be folded away discretely when not used.

 

[iFreilicht]

I personally like the idea of the steam controller, but I want to see reviews of the thing first. I think having a legacy analogue stick is important, but I'm a bit disappointed about the lack of a touchscreen. I think a touchscreen with an e-ink display would've been just fine for this usecase (having more buttons for secondary functions) and would've solved the power issue, but I guess they thought about that.
If it lives up to the expectations, I'll be buying one or two. I hate to put the controller down and get my mouse just because some game decides it has to launch origin or some shit. Being able to control a mouse cursor smoothly with this thing will drastically improve my experience with the Big Picture mode, and I hope it will work for FPS at least somewhat decent. I can't get used to stick FSP at all, Halo is a nightmare for me.
I wouldn't expect it to work in competitive play, but for a bit of casual stuff I want it to work.

 

[EdZ]

One of the primary tenants of a handheld controller is that you don't look at it while in use. Touchscreen buttons do not work without looking at the controller to guide your finger/thumb. 'Traditional' buttons avoid this because you can hunt from them using your tactile sense, without accidentally accidentally actuating the buttons. One option would be Optimus Keyboard style buttons, where a transparent physical button lies over individual or a shared display panel, but now all you have accomplished is customised labelling of awkwardly shaped buttons: you may as well put the buttons there with fixed abstract labels (e.g. geometric shapes, letters) and more tactilely identifiable shapes.

 

[Phuncz]

A very solid insight, I agree that the key between couch-play is that you don't want to fumble with your input and stay focused on the screen.
This is also true for PC games, where most games use the very tactile-oriented mouse and enthusiasts choose for mechanical keyboards for a better tactile feel. This is also a huge challenge for VR as you will basically not be able to see your controller at all while playing.

 

[iFreilicht]

For functions like quicksave or quickload, I have to look at my keyboard already, and you can't control functions like that on a controller yet, so it wouldn't be a downgrade in any respect. I think you could work around te accidential activation problem by making the screen one single button like some thinkpads did with their touchpad. As valve already implemented tactile feedback, I don't see how they couldn't do something similar for a screen like that.
Maybe that was the point where they decided the whole thing was getting too complicated, though.
They probably wanted the controller to work as best as possible and the touchscreen was too much of a gimmick to waste further time on.

 

[Phuncz]

Quicksave and Quickload is a rare given in today's games with autosave, checkpoints and mission selection. So I don't think that will be a problem.

 

[iFreilicht]

Quicksave and Quickload is a rare given in today's games with autosave, checkpoints and mission selection. So I don't think that will be a problem.

That was just an example. Other possible scenarios could include the control of ShadowPlay, Screenshots, a replay editor with additional functionality, setting shortcuts for the selection of different types of units in RTS, direct selection of a certain weapon in FPS, stuff like that.

 

[rawr]

A lot of those things don't really apply in the context of living room gaming - which Valve has clearly stated is their primary emphasis. Most people will probably be playing "simpler" games, in a sense of the term.

If you really need frequent easy access to a number of obscure functionalities, then you should probably be playing that game at a desk with a mouse and keyboard.

 

[iFreilicht]

Well Valve also stated that their goal is to bring complex PC games to the living room in a way that wasn't possible before. I'm pretty sure they didn't mean "we make all of our games simpler" by that. Not saying that it's the best of all ideas, and the same statement you made ("maybe just play it at a desk then") got thrown around a lot when the concept of Big Picture was first unveiled, but that's not what this is about. It's not about having to choose, but being able to choose. If you can't play a game on a Steam Machine in the living room, you'll HAVE to play it at your desk. But if you can play it on either, then you're ABLE to choose to play it wherever you want, and that's what the goal is. (or was.)

 

[rawr]

That is partly true, however for some games and situations it really doesn't make sense.

What Valve wanted was games like Papers Please and Cities Skylines to come to the living room. Yes, they also want games like Dota and Lol but no one in their right minds is going to play those kinds of games on the couch with a controller, even if it is the steam controller.

Sorry for the bad semantics. What I really meant when I was talking about "simpler" games was games that could be realistically fulfilled and enjoyed with a steam controller. Take Papers Please. It's not a complex game. I would call it a simple game. However, it doesn't really work with a 360 controller, but can with the steam controller.

Although yes, you should be given the choice to play whatever you want wherever you want, it is unsuitable to do so in some situations. When Big Picture was unveiled people were saying to play at a desk because that's where your computer probably is, even if the games would work in the living room. Here I'm saying to play at a desk because the games wouldn't work in a living room, and therefore the steam controller shouldn't be trying to target those games as well. Hope that made a little more sense.

 

[EdZ]

With the Steam Controller explicitly supporting customised button function mapping, you can still designate a 'quicksave' button, or a button (or button combo) to trigger shadowplay, etc. You just don't get a live-updated label on the button itself.

 

[iFreilicht]

That is partly true, however for some games and situations it really doesn't make sense.

What Valve wanted was games like Papers Please and Cities Skylines to come to the living room. Yes, they also want games like Dota and Lol but no one in their right minds is going to play those kinds of games on the couch with a controller, even if it is the steam controller.

Sorry for the bad semantics. What I really meant when I was talking about "simpler" games was games that could be realistically fulfilled and enjoyed with a steam controller. Take Papers Please. It's not a complex game. I would call it a simple game. However, it doesn't really work with a 360 controller, but can with the steam controller.

Although yes, you should be given the choice to play whatever you want wherever you want, it is unsuitable to do so in some situations. When Big Picture was unveiled people were saying to play at a desk because that's where your computer probably is, even if the games would work in the living room. Here I'm saying to play at a desk because the games wouldn't work in a living room, and therefore the steam controller shouldn't be trying to target those games as well. Hope that made a little more sense.

Well at least we both agree that the controller tries to push the boundaries of what's playable on a couch. We just disagree on how far those boundaries can realistically be pushed.

With the Steam Controller explicitly supporting customised button function mapping, you can still designate a 'quicksave' button, or a button (or button combo) to trigger shadowplay, etc. You just don't get a live-updated label on the button itself.

That's true. Does that mean that you can remap the keys even if a game doesn't support it?

 

[EdZ]

That's right, Steam is handling the button mapping (and mouse and joystick mapping) making it transparent to the game itself.

 

[Phuncz]

Some commands could still very well be handled with different ways of input like voice commands, touch gestures or even in-game controls in the UI.

It will ofcourse be dependant on implementation but I've seen games fumbling up basic keyboard and mouse usage like they wanted to ruin it intentionally. Dead Island comes to mind with a menu needing several complete swipes across the mousepad to traverse to the next main menu item. some games didn't allow key binding or just had important keys not reassignable.

 

[rawr]

People have received their early-bird controllers. As expected, reviews seem to be mixed, but fortunately lots of positive experiences.


Interestingly the controller has an internal gyroscope. This has been reported to make aiming more natural and possibly easier: