Valve Releases New Video Showing Steam Controller in Action

[Soviet Heavy]

Knock it off. Jeffer's enjoyment of Nintendo has nothing to do with this, and if your only reason to quote him was to insult him and then try and prove his opinion wrong, all it does is show how petty you are. Get over yourselves.

It was a little tongue in cheek humour. We're not the ones who need to get over ourselves.

Right, you're just the kind of people who take the flimsiest excuse possible to take an out of context jab at another user because you disagree with their opinion over a fucking game company.

 

[Ishal]

Eh... Not what I was expecting.

I remain skeptical, and shall remain that way until I hold one in my hands.

 

[Vivi22]

Right, you're just the kind of people who take the flimsiest excuse possible to take an out of context jab at another user because you disagree with their opinion over a fucking game company.

No, I'm just the sort of person who likes to take a completely in context, good natured jab at someone widely known for his almost irrational love of all things Nintendo.

But if Jeffers was offended by it he'd be well within his rights to tell me and I'd apologize. He doesn't need some random guy on the internet to get offended and butt hurt for him. And if you're getting this incensed about the whole thing then I stand my statement that I'm not the one who needs to get over themselves.

 

[Vie]

After watching that I'm kinda less interested in it now.

It looked a lot less intuitive than keyboard and mouse, though I'd prefer to get my hands on it before being foolhardy enough to dismiss it.

 

[Stevepinto3]

Well I'm interested. I like the feel of controllers, they just seem "right" for gaming, but I like the precision of mouse + keyboard. With 1:1 trackpad control this could fill that niche very nicely.

Still though, I'm wondering how we're expected to use most of the buttons ergonomically.

Here's an idea, a controller with buttons on the back that I can press with my middle fingers so my thumbs can stick to movement and camera controls.

You realize that's what the Steam controller does right?

There's four shoulder buttons and two paddles on the back of the controller which together are supposed to be the primary inputs. The face buttons are for secondary/menu functions.

I was under the impression it had just four shoulder buttons like the Xbox/PS controllers. Well this is delightful news to me.

 

[Infernal Lawyer]

Personally, what interests me about this whole thing is the comparison to Microsoft's Kinect and the surrounding PR.

Valve: Here's our new controller!
Public: Looks like shit. Isn't that just a borked version of what we already have?
Valve: Alright, here's some footage of how it works in-game.
Public: Hey, that's pretty cool. It has potential at least. I'll have to try it myself to be sure though.

Meanwhile...

Microsoft: Here's our new controller!
Public: Looks like shit. Isn't that just a modified version of what you've already tried?
Microsoft: Alright, here's a tech demo of who it works.
Public: Hey, that's pretty cool. So, do you have any games for it to show us?
Microsoft: Uh.... EXPERIENCE! TV! TITANFALL! CALL OF DOG! TV! FOOTBALL! TV!
Public: Yeah, it's a few months before you sell it and multiple months after you first revealed it, and you STILL have nothing to show us? Sorry, not interested.

 

[Strazdas]

looks better than regular consoles worse thna keyboard and mouse to me. feels a lot like a trackpad in civ 5 which is a pity, i hate those things but i have to use them when traveling (its not always viable to plug in a normal mouse, and those minimouses are the fastest way to destroy your hands.

This was video number 001. my damn OCD will make me watch hundreds of videos of this thing. argh.

 

[Trippy Turtle]

Seems to have the exact same problem I have with a mouse and keyboard for first person games, only worse. Who in their right mind wants to constantly pick up their mouse/thumbs to continue turning in the same direction?

I just want to stick to a solid dependable analog stick. No motion controls, no track pads, no other gimmicky inconveniences. As much as creativity is good in this industry they sure seem to be using it in the wrong places.

 

[medv4380]

So, that's the Steam controller in action. What do you guys think? Was it worth the big buildup, or are you still unimpressed?

I'm somehow less impressed then I was before. I never doubted that the controller would work. My original issue was with the speaker pads because that's been done before, and every time it's come accost poorly. I don't really care how they may have "improved" the poor design. Past experience is against them on this. Also, the pad is clearly designed to treat lefties fairly. That might sound good, but as my left handed brother said "A life time of conditioning to use right handed control design is going to make this 'fair' design suck".

However, now their design decisions make sense. They're trying to bridge the Keyboard and Mouse setup with controllers. It's like MS making Windows 8 be a Tablet OS and a Desktop OS. This is simply a bad Idea that 'sounds' good because a successful version would be ideal. However, some Ideals can never be reached. This is one of them. Nothing will truly match the precision of a mouse, and the flexibility of a massive amount of buttons.

Their time would have been better spent coming up with a open hardware design, and getting major 3rd party control manufactures on board so that PC's can have a real standard, and not the 360 defacto standard.