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Valve Announces Steam Controller
Today Valve unveiled their third and final announcement about living room gaming: a Steam controller. The company made the determination that existing gamepads simply weren't good enough for bringing PC games to the living room, so they made their own. Instead of having directional pads or thumb sticks, the Steam controller has two circular trackpads. The trackpads are also clickable, and Valve claims they provide much higher fidelity than any previous controller trackpad. Valve also eschewed the traditional 'rumble' feedback mechanism: "The Steam Controller is built around a new generation of super-precise haptic feedback, employing dual linear resonant actuators. These small, strong, weighted electro-magnets are attached to each of the dual trackpads. They are capable of delivering a wide range of force and vibration, allowing precise control over frequency, amplitude, and direction of movement." The center of the controller holds a clickable touchscreen. "When programmed by game developers using our API, the touch screen can work as a scrolling menu, a radial dial, provide secondary info like a map or use other custom input modes we haven't thought of yet." The design also breaks up the common diamond-shaped button layout, instead putting the A B X Y buttons at the corners of the touchscreen. The controller is designed to be hackable, and Valve will "make tools available that will enable users to participate in all aspects of the experience, from industrial design to electrical engineering." The controller is being beta tested concurrently with the Steam Machines they announced on Wednesday, so you can expect them to be on sale in 2014.
They already said you can still use KB+M. I mean, the hardware's going to be running GNU/Linux, after all.
You can use those too likely. There are plenty of USB controllers in different configurations that can plug into a PC and work with Steam Big Picture at the moment.
If my experience with trackpad controls on phone games is anything to go by, I think it's a very bad idea. Incorporating a trackpad isn't necessarily a bad idea, but I can't stand the 'virtual D-pads' in mobile games. I'm constantly losing my 'center' and my thumbs slip out of the 'zero' position and I'll have to constantly reposition my thumbs back onto the center of the virtual D-pad. I've given up on many games (some of which are console ports) because I just can't stand that style of interface for directional movement.
I hope that I'm wrong, because I don't like how my xbox360 controller behaves on my computer and would love an alternative, but I have really strong reservations about their plan.
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It isn't stupidity if they understood the terms of the purchase and preferred it to other options. Those "supposedly intelligent" fanboys probably spent less for Halflife than you did and they can play it on Windows, OS X, or linux.
What wrong with a wireless keyboard and mouse?
KB+M is fine for single player. The problem comes when you have players 2, 3, and 4 visiting your home, and the APIs for accessing more than one mouse or more than one keyboard are far more obscure than the APIs for accessing more than one gamepad.
For most of its life steam has been a distribution method for PC games. All of the announcements steam has made this week have been about testing new steam products that are attempting to make steam a console replacement. Steam big picture is very easy to use on a big screen TV with a controller. It is still a beta product and the experience is not nearly as seamless as the console experience.
Installing and running games with steam on linux is a breeze. You don't need to fight with anything. If a steam game supports linux it usually just works. There aren't a ton of games on steam that support linux, but the number is growing rapidly.
I don't know about split screen, but most games have decent gamepad support.
They addressed that in question 2 of the FAQ - if you are happy with kb and mouse then you can continue to be so. The controller is supplemental, and their attempt to address the problem of PC gaming from the couch for those who don't want to sit at a desk or use a keyboard and mouse on their lap.