News Valve demos Steam Controller

Looks kinda difficult to fine aim in FPS's.

Frankly the more I hear about what Steam have been up to the less I'm interested. Steam Box just appears to be a HTPC, Steam OS is just another Linux distro and this is just another controller type. I'm not disappointed they tried, I just don't get the whole point.

 

Well if you don't want to relax on the sofa while playing games there isn't much reason to care.

 

its quite obvious they just want to make a point to microsoft to loosen up on the Windows App store, by the easiest way possible producing your own OS to support games. I'm still skeptical to if steamOS will catch up with everyone, but atleast hopefully Microsoft sees the point

 

You really think ploughing huge amounts of money and time into designing and making new hardware and software is an easy way to make a point to Microsoft that you don't like the app store ?

 

I once had a Microsoft dualstrike gamepad, and while it was not as fast as a KB + mouse combo, it was still a viable solution for gaming (not for fast fps though, like unreal tournament or quake 3 arena in its time).



Those tactive command look nice, but I like to feel what I use (maybe the concave shape will help).

As a Linux user, I'm happy that studios are considering it as a viable solution, but I'm not dreaming too much ... most games still won't appear on my beloved OS.

 

Funny bit, while yesterday AMD released drivers for linux that give 90% performance boost!!!

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=amd_linux312_major&num=1

Interesting time ahead

 

Not trying to argue, but I can't physically 'relax' when playing most games. Heck, Candy Crush got me so riled up I had to delete it.

The only game I've found therapeutic and kick back to is the free drive mode in NFS, where I can drive the roads without worrying about anything at all, not even racing.

 

I how they don't show actually a person playing the game, just move around.
The video shows exactly what people thought.. 2 touchpads. You need to swipe multiple times to move.

The only game that seams to be working fine is Civ5.. but try and read the small UI text from your TV... won't be on a relaxing position on the couch, as you'll be trying to read and point and click on items, especially that if you press a direction, you cant' jump to menu items, like you can using the arrow keys on a keyboard or the directions of a controller.

As much as I like Valve, this spells failure.
We can't be always perfect, and we always fail at some point in time. I would suggest Valve to realize this now, and fix it, like Sony did with the original PS3 controller.

 

I like a good argument but im totally with you on not finding games relaxing, but millions of console owners cant be wrong can they

It seemed to me that Portal was working well, and CS:GO although he was pausing when selecting targets it seemed to work OK. I would like to see how it fairs in a more pressurised game though, something like TF2 on a pub server.
As the pads can be configured how ever you like, you will be able to map keyboard arrow keys or any other keys, and isn't being able to read small UI text very dependent on the size of the screen vs the viewing distance ?

 

Ultimately, I'm not convinced that 2 touch pads are any better than the two thumb sticks on a standard console controller...

 

point noted, but do you remember when the first thumb sticks came about, i and (forgive my presumption) many others where saying, "what they hell is this, you cant control the guys that well", and still used only the d-pad for a while till we grown accustom to them and now arguing for them...

 

There simply aren't enough buttons surely?

4 shoulder buttons...

Crouch, jump, aim & shoot

Reload?
Change weapons?
Pick up?
Throw?
Action?
etc
etc

Mapping them to a touch screen sounds awful - especially as it will be in the centre of the pad.

Don't see ow this is going to work to be honest.

 

Well going on these mappings...



I count 20+ different mappings, you use more ?
By the look of it each track pad can have 9 mappings if not used for mouse look.

 

To me it looks like Valve is using some algorithms to smooth the touchpad input and give it a bit of inertia reducing the need to tap so much to move the cursor over long distances.
Good algorithms can fix many of the issues commonly found with touchpads (a reason many laptop users still bring a mouse with them even if not gaming).

 

The ability to track movement distance, rather than just velocity+direction, seems like a huge advantage over a thumb stick. It's far more similar to a mouse and should be more intuitive and precise for KB/M focused games.

 

Point well made.

It looks interesting. It's in beta. And it's def a step in the right direction. I'm loving it! If I can use it on my PC then I'll be def trying it out, as I won't be moving to my couch anytime soon, if ever, for my gaming but I'm def interested in using or trying a gamepad.

 

These controls look pretty awkward to me, as you constantly have to reassure yourself where your thumbs are positioned, constant scrolling and theres no automatic centering.

Don't fix what's allready working perfectly fine like the current PS3 and XBox-controllers.

 

Controller looks interesting, but the Steambox idea is still terrible. Valve would have to take heavy losses on the hardware in order to make it even worth considering.