Two months ago, Valve presented a new prototype of their Steam Controller with a significantly changed button layout. While the overall shape and two thumbpads remained constant, the touchscreen disappeared and the face buttons more closely resembled something from an Xbox or PlayStation. Another prototype image has been released, ahead of GDC, without many changes.
Valve is still in the iteration process for its controller, however. Ten controllers will be available at GDC, each handmade. This version has been tested internally for some undisclosed amount of time, but this will be the first time that others will give their feedback since the design that was shown at CES. The big unknown is: to what level are they going to respond to feedback? Are we at the stage where it is about button sizing? Or, will it change radically – like to a two-slice toaster case with buttons inside the slots.
GDC is taking place March 17th through the 21st. The expo floor opens on the 19th.
It looks like the “love
It looks like the “love child” of a spotted owl and jar jar binks, but if it works for its intended purpose fine with me. I hope after valve gets their Steam OS ecosystem off and running, that they turn their attention to a tablet based Steam OS, and maybe a Steam branded tablet with all of its Debian based goodness and potential for graphics, gaming and otherwise. Android is not going to get me to buy a tablet, but a tablet with a full Debian Linux based OS, and the ability to app-get and run some desktop open source graphics programs, would make me become one happy tablet owner.
WINTEL is not an option, it is a dictatorship, and Android makes tablet devices into appliances(The New Boob Tube)!
i am super exited for this
i am super exited for this controller. i have no doubt the touchpads could be fantastic if done right.
but what excites me the most is going to be steam’s controller mapping software that’s coming along with this, i have used other software to try and map a 360 controller to games with no controller support but it just isn’t the nicest experience.
with steam having configs stored in the cloud that are public and upvoted, along with possibly macros for buttons will make so many more games playable with a controller.