News Valve unveils the Steam Controller

From my understanding its very customisable, everything from the amount, type, and where the feedback happens. The article originally linked by d_stilgar says...

My guess is once they release the API for the game pad we will have thousands of different configs being published by users covering most peoples different preferences, and if not you could tweak a config more to your liking.

 

Sounds good to me! As long as the controller input is not ONLY governed by the game and can be freely configured by the user by an additional menu or configuration utility (like Synapse - possibly bad example, but you get the idea!)

Guidance by the developer is fine, as they would have a good idea of how they want it to run in a way that fits with the world they're trying to create, but they don't always get it right for everyone and flexibility is pretty much the whole idea behind the announcements!

Just had an interesting thought of a possible use-case: circular motion around the rim of the trackpad for steering in driving games...

 

Valve developer running through using the controller.

 

The controller looks great in use.