I mean, technically, the Steam Controller is neat and all. And it’s pretty customizable, so I get people who want to use it for some specific application.
I mean, as I understand it, the Steam Controller was aimed at supporting the Steam Machine. The basic problem was that Valve sold a large library of PC-oriented titles. A lot of these used a mouse. Gamepads were a poor substitute for the mouse. Valve wanted to get Steam into the living room, so put out their own video game console entrant.
But the Steam Machine didn’t sell well, so Valve’s reason for making the Steam Controller kind of went away. Most people gaming on a PC can just, well, use a mouse. I’m not saying that there’s no market for the thing – I’m sure that there are people who use a non-Steam-Machine PC to play games in the living room. But the intended use case for the thing kind of got clobbered.
It looks like there are still people selling Steam Controllers on eBay, though I assume that they aren’t going to be getting a whole lot of maintenance from Valve, given that they sold in relatively small numbers, and they haven’t been sold for about five years now. You could probably get one there.
I played Doom 2016 on the couch with. Touchpads for large camera movements and the gyro for precise aiming. Worked very good after getting used to it, felt better / more dynamic than a classic gamepad.
That might take some remapping to glue the inputs to a given game, as I bet that it’s presenting itself to the system as a USB hub with an attached keyboard, gamepad, and touchpad.
I mean I still have my Steam Controller but I wish they’d just rerelease the thing. For the 60 bucks back then it was an absolute bargain considering ehat you can do with it. And I have to say, it felt also really nice to hold with the kinda grip you’d have on it, which is really different.
Straight up the only controller that doesn’t give me hand/wrist fatigue. I was a little disappointed they didn’t try something similarly whacky with the ergonomics of the deck.
Hmm. What’s your use case?
I mean, technically, the Steam Controller is neat and all. And it’s pretty customizable, so I get people who want to use it for some specific application.
I mean, as I understand it, the Steam Controller was aimed at supporting the Steam Machine. The basic problem was that Valve sold a large library of PC-oriented titles. A lot of these used a mouse. Gamepads were a poor substitute for the mouse. Valve wanted to get Steam into the living room, so put out their own video game console entrant.
But the Steam Machine didn’t sell well, so Valve’s reason for making the Steam Controller kind of went away. Most people gaming on a PC can just, well, use a mouse. I’m not saying that there’s no market for the thing – I’m sure that there are people who use a non-Steam-Machine PC to play games in the living room. But the intended use case for the thing kind of got clobbered.
It looks like there are still people selling Steam Controllers on eBay, though I assume that they aren’t going to be getting a whole lot of maintenance from Valve, given that they sold in relatively small numbers, and they haven’t been sold for about five years now. You could probably get one there.
Steam machines were bad prebuilts with an OS that wasn’t ready. Of course it didn’t sell well.
That doesn’t really say anything about the appeal of couch PC gaming.
I played Doom 2016 on the couch with. Touchpads for large camera movements and the gyro for precise aiming. Worked very good after getting used to it, felt better / more dynamic than a classic gamepad.
I dunno what nanoUFO is aiming for, but for your use case, can’t do that with dual touchpads alone, then. You’re after a touchpad+gyro. Hmm.
searches a bit
It does look like there is at least one touchpad+gyro input device out there other than the Steam Controller.
https://www.amazon.com/DarkWalker-Controller-PC-Mac-Linux-Unix/dp/B0CM5YXYZM/
That might take some remapping to glue the inputs to a given game, as I bet that it’s presenting itself to the system as a USB hub with an attached keyboard, gamepad, and touchpad.
That gamepad look like an ergonomical nightmare.
I mean I still have my Steam Controller but I wish they’d just rerelease the thing. For the 60 bucks back then it was an absolute bargain considering ehat you can do with it. And I have to say, it felt also really nice to hold with the kinda grip you’d have on it, which is really different.
Straight up the only controller that doesn’t give me hand/wrist fatigue. I was a little disappointed they didn’t try something similarly whacky with the ergonomics of the deck.
Steam Link is a thing. It’s great to play PC games on your living room TV. A Steam controller would be perfect for that.