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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.
I don't mind the trackpads, they could be alright. Maybe. But the fact that they expect you to alternately press buttons with either hand makes me feel like it could be hard to simultaneously move and act in a game.(This must be how lefties feel all the time)
As with regular ads, it's only annoying when it's things I don't want immediately as soon as I hear about them. Ads for a new car or a coke? Shove those up your ass. Ads for a controller I wanted as soon as I saw the headline? Not annoying to me.
Anyway, isn't the implication with "slashvertizing" that someone has posted a story to their own product? Pretty sure this was posted out of genuine interest, not financial interest.
I'm not really sure how, but it's been confirmed with this announcement. You have to read it carefully. Specifically, picking certain letters out.
(starts crying)
They already said you can still use KB+M. I mean, the hardware's going to be running GNU/Linux, after all.
I have no idea what I'm talking about but here is my commentary.
"Slashvertisement" is a wonderful word.
It's so much shorter than "I am an aggressively dishonest shitheel who refuses to make the simple distinction between advertising and reporting the the fact of a product announcement, and furthermore I am desperate to affect a demeanor of world-weary cynicism that I can never actually attain but have been conditioned to think is cool by the very people I want to think I'm rebelling against".
They're not great for sitting on a couch and playing games. I've tried both and it's a lot more comfortable to be holding a controller rather than a long keyboard that needs to be placed on something.
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.
The idea is to try and create an experience that's close to the precision of a keyboard and mouse. No console controller offers this.
I'm actually really happy about this. This is the kind of innovation controllers have been needing for a very long time. I can pretty much guarantee that PS5 and, uh, Xbox Two? will employ controllers with this kind of tech.
The Internet King? I wonder if he could provide faster nudity.
You can use one if you like. But for console (read sitting on the living room couch) a KB/M doesn't work that well. I guess they felt that these trackpad controllers are the happy medium to allow the most flexibility / compatibility. I'd personally probably use a lap desk + KB/M
What exactly are they smoking? Do they think that people are going to LIKE trackpads instead of something more ...useful? Like a button or a stick.
I agree. I've been a PC-only gamer forever, but this whole Steambox/OS/controller thinger is intriguing. I'd happily build my own Steam box, put the OS on it, and buy a controller to play Portal in my living room.
I do wonder about their target audience with all of this. Will they be able to crack into the market already owned by one of the consoles? Or are they hoping that by luring PC users over to this new model they'll get them to buy more games/hardware. Maybe they're following Amazon's route of just trying to get as many people as possible hooked on the ecosystem...
I just hope it doesn't flop.
Perception is the thin dividing line between reality and fiction.
No problem! You can do that too!
What you have here is more choices.
He's replying to the accusation that it's a slashvertisement, and the implication that it's a bad thing.
No, I refuse to mod up. It's not trolling, but it lacks a meaningful insight. Steam approaches the DRM question from a different direction by detaching game ownership from physical devices entirely.
When you buy a disk, and have an install limit, or an offline game, with an always online requirement, it turns the thing you think you have into something less valuable, and uses a legal fiction to justify it. Steam gives you a person license that you can use as part of an account independent of the machine on which its installed, with some flexibility regarding internet access and physical media. It's a license that actually acts like a license, you can use it freely, yourself. It treats the underlying legal fiction as actually representative of usage, rather than an excuse to limit you.
It has tons of buttons that don't require moving the hands at all.
I think you're completely wrong.
Wow, sent an e-mail as suggested when clicking on "use classic" banner, and got a fast response that addressed my msg
No, sc2 is not on steam because blizzard doesn't need steam as a storefront.
How do I play Street Fighter or any traditional joypad game on that thing? I don't want to dismiss it out of hand, but I have serious doubts.
It might actually be a better joypad for console fps gaming, but unless I see good TF2 YTbers like shibby2142 praising the pad and pulling off rocket jumps while shovelling people with ease... I'll stick to kb+m.
Touch screen/pad, maybe I can see being kinda cool for use on menu screens, but when you're in action, you need the precision of physical sticks and buttons. When things get intense, I always find myself pressing buttons harder and trying to tilt sticks further than they can move, and that style of play hasn't ever worked well with any kind of touch input.
Touch pads for joysticks just feels too much like the on screen joysticks people pretend are legitimate in mobile games. The issue on touch devices is as I said before, there's always the 'shit shit shit go further/faster/turn sharper' moment when you want to push the virtual joystick further but there is no boundary so your thumb/finger slides all the way off of it and you stop moving altogether. These touch pads do have physical boundaries it seems, but I wonder if they are so precise, what happens when you want to simulate tilting a stick all the way in a certain direction, but where you initially contact the touch pad isn't exactly center, leaving you with that offset as lost range.
I'm also skeptical of the buttons being split on either side of that screen or whatever it is. If you are moving or looking or whatever with your left thumb, the two buttons right next to that touch pad are essentially useless. I don't know it is only 2 buttons, it says there are 16 on the thing so maybe that isn't so big a deal.
I'm with you though on the XBox 360 controller. 2 full joysticks, analog shoulder triggers, even a D-Pad for when you don't want to trust the joystick for explicit up, down, left, or right inputs. It has all the bases covered for a wide variety of games without being overcomplicated.
Check out the cave on the east side of lake Hylia. Strange and wonderful things live in it.
Stop being factual. I was trying to make a point.
I should use this sig to advertise my book ISBN-13 : 978-1501515132.
Most of the games I've played by controller expect that you'll be using an XBox360 controller, so the game is set up expecting you to have the same types of controls and buttons in the same locations for two-handed operations. Drastically changing what and where everything is will only result in a controller that is unusable for most of the games it was created for.
Looks like the perfect controller for a backpack scouting drone.
You can already use those, but the 360 controller is much better. I am willing to try this new steam controller but I probably won't be convinced it is better until I try it myself.
The Official Site of 1337 Pwnage
Brings back distant memories of the Intellivision controller. I hope its an improvement over that godawful thing.
And what about people like me who don't own a TV and don't buy computer games? They need to scratch this whole design and come up with something that isn't a game console, there no sense in anyone making products that neither of us has a use for. Maybe make a domestic robot?
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Don't be ridiculous. Slashdot has covered new and interesting product developments since long before you created a SlashID. This falls well into the "News for Nerds" category. I will probably never buy this as I don't even game, yet I read it anyway. Why? Because it is interesting new technology. Period.
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
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.
SteamOS is Linux based but I doubt it's going to be anything even Stallman would call GNU/Linux.
Everything I've seen makes this sound like it's more aimed at being a 'Console which runs PC games' than a normal computer. I'd expect it to load into a 'Big Picture' mode Steam client, and allow the user to launch their games and specially-modified applications from that which could well run as overlays like the existing Steam browser. Whether this machine even needs a command line is debatable, it shouldn't need GCC (I'd expect a fully binary-based OS) or a full-featured window and compositing desktop like Gnome.
404 Not Found: No such file or resource as '.sig'
wtf is a "phone book" ?
I currently have a Linux PC and a XBox 360 connected to my TV. Is Steam more of a console replacement, or a distribution method for PC-style games? (I.e. keyboard/mouse input and few co-op games). Does installing games on Linux under Steam actually work, or is it a nightmare of package dependencies that require an up-to-date install of a specific distro? Is there a good selection of split-screen games that are gamepad-friendly? I am getting a little tired of the XBox 360 low resolution, and it is feeling more and more limited without paying a subscription fee, which I won't do.
We don't like the DRM, we just realize that DRM is not a black and white issue that trumps all else in the equation. We also realize that without any DRM whatsoever, PC gaming would be limited to what you see on GOG. GOG is good an all, old games are fun, indie games are good and sometimes better than anything else, and the small handful of big titles that are released DRM free are really to be applauded... but often I want big new games that some company has invested a lot of money in. A lot of them aren't entirely comfortable with it being completely DRM free. If you can't understand their perspective, you've clearly never made a game (neither have I) and you're closed minded.
The big problem with Steam is the restriction on simultaneously using two games in one library. My wife likes to play too, and those games, under California law, are as much hers as they are mine, no matter what the Terms-of-Use say.
So I need to make a new account for every game I buy, and it's a major pain in the ass to manage.
Leela: Didn't you have ads in the 21st century?"
Fry: Well sure, but not in our dreams. Only on TV and radio, and in magazines, and movies, and at ball games... and on buses and milk cartons and t-shirts, and bananas and written on the sky. But not in dreams, no siree.
and has moved on to AAAAAARRRGHHS! That's the only way I can explain this week's perpetual 3-trollage.
When people first saw the diamond on the NES control pad, they said "The controller design is awful. Why the fuck would you get rid of the traditional joystick?"
I personally have mixed feelings about the controller, but I'm at least willing to wait to give it a try before passing judgement on it.
"I’m a happy Steam customer happily using my happy mouse and keyboard. I don’t want a controller?" "You can’t make a sentence into a question by just putting a question-mark at the end. But we’re happy you’re happy [...]" Oh Valve. I love companies who can still afford to have a sense of humour about things.
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.
So people can use those monitors. Your monopolizing them with your pc use.
He has upper management written all over him.
My only problem with the Sony controllers is that they're sized for the hand of a Japanese adult, which makes them unsuitable for males of European descent. The Xbox controllers are a much better fit for the adult male hand outside of Asia.
And GOG does all that without DRM.
It still limits use for legitimate users and creates an unnecessary headache for them. Accepting STEAM is like saying "oh well it's excrement in my soup, but at least it's only bird excrement, not dog excrement". You're still going to get sick you fuckwit!
The DRM on the Nintendo DS has stopped people from playing Bob's Game because at the time, Nintendo didn't allow developers to operate out of a home office.
I agree that this looks like it's intended to replace a keyboard/mouse, rather than a controller. The only major drawback I can see of the design (presuming it works as well as intended) is that it'll be unusable for games that either expect a 'normal' controller layout or that tend to use a significant number of keybindings (it looks like anything expecting more than eight keys and a mouse will likely be unusable).
That really depends how far they take the "openness" - they seem to be hammering that message, so I'm going to assume it's at the very least going to be really easy to muck about with for those who want to.
This is Valve's broadside attack on Windows 8, and they seem to have gone all out for it.
If they can pull it off, it's going to be for console gaming what Android is to smartphones.
They're not forcing it. Question 2 of the FAQ specifically states that they are not forcing it on you and you can keep the kb and mouse forever more.
What they're offering is an alternative, optional, additional, supplemental, controller for those who would prefer to use something other than a keyboard and mouse to game from the couch. If you want to use a keyboard and mouse, plug those into the Steam Machine (or your PC running steam hooked up to your TV) and carry on as normal.
My car has 5 seats and a big trunk, why would I want a pick up truck with only 2 seats and nowhere for my other passengers?
Why would I want to drive around in one of those?
I'd say its annoying because there are plenty of other worthy subjects in the firehose on any given day and instead of one of those we get a commercial.
But when it comes to SteamOS and the SteamBox there is a rotting elephant that nobody seems to be willing to talk about...how in the world are they gonna pull off functional DRM in a FOSS OS without running afoul of the GPL? Are they gonna do like Google did and sink a billion into making their own GPL V2 only fork so they can use the "TiVo Trick" of code signing the DRM? Are they gonna demand boards that have TPM so they can use it against the user? How are they gonna pull it off?
I have read some say they are gonna just do it "like they do Steam on Windows" but I don't think that will work with a FOSS OS as you can always get the underlying subsystems to "lie" to the program by simply making your own recompile, something not possible with either OSX or Windows. They also can't use the kernel hooks that past DRM systems like SecuROM and StarForce used for the same reason, one could recompile the kernel to bypass it. Not to mention there are plenty of Linux hackers that hate DRM on general principle and will probably do everything they can to undermine any program that uses DRM. We have also seen this attitude from several of the devs of Linux who I wouldn't be surprised if their "updates" mainly break SteamOS. As one told me when I pointed out having updates break drivers was stupid "I hope we break every non GPL driver constantly!" because he truly believed a broken OS that was "GPL Pure" was better than a functional one.
So as a system builder while I would like nothing more than for this to work, as i think win 8 is an abomination and MSFT has always treated us like red headed stepchildren between this and the fact that a good 90% of triple A games in the last 10 years have been DirectX only? I just don't see how its gonna work, somebody really needs to do an interview with valve and ask the hard hitting questions. Maybe they have an answer, maybe they have cooked up their own GPL V2 only fork, maybe they have bought a good chunk of the Wine guys and have them working on a "clicky clicky" simple version of wine to integrate with SteamOS, I just don't know but I would MUCH rather read how they are gonna solve these VERY difficult issues, not read an oversized commercial about yet another supposedly innovative controller.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.