Slashdot Mirror
Steam Controller Drops Touchscreen
An anonymous reader writes "Last year Valve announced a new game controller that was trying to innovate on the designs that have been with us for over a decade now. The biggest changes were replacing analog sticks with circular touchpads and plopping a small touchscreen into the middle of the controller. Valve has now revamped their prototype hardware, and the touchscreen is nowhere to be seen. In its place are stop/play buttons (which appear similar to start/select buttons) and a bigger Steam logo button. They've also moved around the directional and ABXY buttons, reverting to a more traditional layout (picture). They'll be demonstrating the latest prototype next week at GDC."
Costs, of course. Making a competively priced gaming PC (steam machine) compared to consoles is hard but doable, throw in a controller with an expensive touchscreen and it becomes impossible. Valve apparently had second thoughts over impossing that extra cost on OEMs.
This was announced January 15th at Steam Dev Days. It was all over the news.
Goes the screen !!
I kinda wish it still had the touchscreen. As it is trying to replace the keyboard and mouse for use in the living room, it would be nice to use the touchscreen as a small keyboard for chatting or typing in web addresses in the overlay.
http://slashdot.org/submission...
It's just that yesterday (or the day before) they actually unveiled some new imagery showing what it looks like.
Making a competively priced gaming PC (steam machine) compared to consoles is hard but doable
Especially given that the Nintendo 64 was a stripped down SGI Indy, and the original Xbox, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One are made with PC parts.
throw in a controller with an expensive touchscreen and it becomes impossible.
What does this say about the Wii U GamePad?
They said their reasoning was that a screen on the controller forced you to split your attention between the TV screen and the controller screen. The screen on the controller would only end up being useful when you weren't playing a game, and the cost wasn't worth it for being used strictly for non-gaming.
So basically cost wasn't the major factor.
"[...] in January [...] showed the developers there a very rough mockup image for the new controller. Today, the company released a much more detailed photo of the new design, shown above, [...]"
So, yes, as you write, it's about the new image.
What does this say about the Wii U GamePad?
I'd posit that the Wii U sacrificed a significant amount of hardware in their console for the sake of that fancy gamepad. Even with this new console generation's modest hardware barely being able to render at HD resolutions, the Wii U is still a generation behind. That's not necessarily a criticism, mind you... it's a choice that you have to make about the realities of pricing and hardware specs. Nintendo obviously isn't trying to compete in the high-specs console market, and that's fine. They choose to innovate in other ways.
Valve has to make the same choices regarding price and hardware tradeoffs. Keep in mind that it might not only be about price - it could be that the touchscreen wasn't living up to their expectations in terms of performance. As such, why not go with a tried and true (and cheaper) alternative. After all, the big three have kept their analog sticks and D-pads all this time. There's surely a reason for this other than history or momentum.
Irony: Agile development has too much intertia to be abandoned now.
OEMs can not afford to sell steam machines at a loss. Unless Valve cuts them some margin for steam sales to their devices, but imagine all the early adopters buying the cheap pcs and formatting them (so there would be no way for Valve to know that any steam sale was made from a dell steam machine).
What costs? Don't be fooled by the high price of the Wii U controller. Touch screens, especially small touch screens are very cheap. They scale in cost depending on the size of the screen. A touch digitiser for a typical mobile phone costs less than $10 in small quantities, so for something the size of what they were proposing you could estimate maybe $2-3 in bulk. The screens themselves aren't much more expensive either unless you're aiming for IPS retina or OLED or some other wanky screen from a high-end phone.
Not that I don't like the idea of a touch screen on the controller but I have yet to see a game take advantage of it properly. So far implementations of the Wii U touch screen have been a major pain to use and serve no real purpose in a game. Even the best example I can think of from the Mario game requires a person to pause, change what they are looking at, and then let go of the controller to press the touch panel.
Plus, Valve is now using "Ghost Mode".
They now show what you are touching on top of the game while you are touching it.
Details are in the Steam Controller talk during the Steam Dev Days; starting 23:35.
They probably saw the Wii U and realised the most expensive mistake on it.
Can't say it'll affect my opinion of their product one way or another.
Did you miss the part before the "and"? The bit which describes what the major factor was?
but imagine all the early adopters buying the cheap pcs and formatting them
Why would early adopters need to format a Steam Machine? They can just exit Steam, start GNOME, and run their non-Steam GNU/Linux applications that way.
Not the lower res/graphical fanciness, but the controller. It isn't that much fun to use as a controller because, well, it is fucking huge. It is a tablet. Thing is, if people wanted to play games on a tablet they'd probably do so and on one that could travel around with them.
Also it is pretty expensive. The screen, wireless interface, processor, all that jazz costs quite a bit and pushed up the cost of the Wii U. Part of what made the Wii successful was that it was really cheap compared to the "big 2" consoles. So people got it for kids or got it as an "and a" console along with their favoured of the bigger ones. This time though, the price advantage is not as much. It is still cheaper but not by as much.
So since the gimmick isn't something people are that interested in, and it drives up the price, it really hasn't been a good move. Despite being out a good bit longer than the Xboner and the PS4 it hasn't sold more.
Actually similar issue on the Xboner's side with the Kinect. That is the primary reason is costs more than the PS4, and that cost has been putting a damper on its sales. People just have no fucks to give about the controller gimmick, they wanna play games.
I'd posit that the Wii U sacrificed a significant amount of hardware in their console for the sake of that fancy gamepad.
They did. I'd still have bought one but it doesn't support 4 controllers with displays. That was a massive failure.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Are you kidding? A touchscreen probably adds a few cents to the total cost of manufacture. It would be one of the cheapest components.
Yes, but remember, the PC gaming market has already shown a willingness to pay more than twice the cost of a next-gen console for a really kick-ass gaming experience.
The key to Valve's success with its Steam Box, IMO, is to keep in mind that PC gamers are a very different market than console gamers. And, they have more money to spend. If they try to position Steam Box as nothing more than a direct competitor to consoles, they will fail.
I'm already putting together a Steam Box that's going to end up costing about 4 times what a next-gen console goes for. A few more bucks for a groundbreaking controller is not a big deal.
Having said all that, I'm not sure a touchscreen in a controller is a good idea. Maybe just a simple touchpad, but a full-blown touch display would make the controller too delicate for me. My controller takes a fair amount of abuse. And I don't want to have to look at the controller at any time.;
You are welcome on my lawn.
their reasoning was that a screen on the controller forced you to split your attention between the TV screen and the controller screen
Yep... glad to see someone is learning from the Wii U's mistakes.
-1, Too Many Layers Of Abstraction
Personally I would love for a separate release of one that has a small screen on it, more as a "play elsewhere around the house" type deal instead of specifically sitting in front of TV or computer.
The controller would likely need to be a little bit longer due to the larger screen for any reasonable use as a remote screen.
But essentially it would just be the same sort of deal Nintendo has going with its controllers.
The touchscreen controller is so damn good in some games. Especially multiplayer games where there is some sort of hunt going on and the person on the TV is the one looking for the others on the touchscreens. I wish I remembered what the name of that was again, it was at a friends apartment, but one of the roommates moves out because she became a total bitch and it was her game. (as well as the extra touchscreen controller too)
Eh, that doesn't really fit many games on Steam though. Local multiplayer is a rare thing on PC games. Damn shame.
Mind you, with Oculus Rift coming soon, I'd not really care afterwards since I would just use that.
No gaming control pad should have a touchscreen. It was absolutely ridiculous on the Wii U and it'd be ridiculous here...especially considering none of the Steam games out already (that I know of) take advantage of such a feature and TBH I find that touchscreens are one of the worst gaming input devices in existence. Actually, touchscreens are the worst modern input devices bar none, excluding point of sale use cases. Tossing the touchscreen is a great choice.
You know it.
Using thr xbox layout of ABXY is not traditional. The Nintendo layout predates it by 10 years
if people wanted to play games on a tablet they'd probably do so and on one that could travel around with them.
Touch-screen tablets are good for positional input. But some game genres are more suited toward directional input than positional input, especially things like platformers and fighting games. Trying to do directional input with a touch screen is painful, as shown in the demo of Pixeline and the Jungle Treasure. The advantage of Wii U GamePad over a tablet is that it has both traditional gaming controls (a directional control and discrete trigger buttons) and a touch screen. Only a few uncommon mobile devices, such as Sony's Xperia Play, Archos GamePad, and JXD gaming tablets, have both.
Yet the DS printed money despite splitting the player's attention between the Top Screen and the Touch Screen.
I'd still have bought one but it doesn't support 4 controllers with displays. That was a massive failure.
How many controllers does a typical PC game support, with or without displays? It's been claimed that PC game developers leave out support for split-screen play and spawn installation on purpose, in order to sell multiple copies of a game to one household.
Why the seperate up down left right buttons? Put a decent D pad on there. The seperate buttons instead of a good D pad is why I hate the all Sony controllers. Xbox can't make a decent D pad. Can anyone make a decent D pad anymore.
am i the only one that noticed this controller is the first one that is actually designed to be used by both left and right handed people?
even if not electrically, it would be a pretty staight forward hack as long at a.b.x.y aren;t analog, even then it might still be possible
and dont give me that shit of "the controllers are already designed for left handed people" shit.
you ever try to play MW or GTA with the left handed setups???
fucking fail, its hard as shit to run and use your right hand to move the character.
your right thumb is on the joystick, while you try to use your index or middle finger to press X to run.
not cool
They were awful on the PS2. It was impossible to gauge how hard you were pressing....
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There's a whole video about it from steam dev days. You can look it up on youtube.
Basically the touchscreen meant looking away from the screen, refocusing on the controller, which pulled you out of the game.
What they played with instead is: You have two touchpads and most games steam games have integration with the steam overlay. They've been experimenting with having one of the back buttons pull up a screen actually on screen (I mean, what you would've had on the touchscreen, be it extra buttons, controller/game setup menus, whatever) and you navigate with the touch pads you're touching anyway.
From the last talk it seems that gave them better immersion and experience while dropping the cost of the controller a lot.
Sending the picture to be displayed on a touch screen needs a faster (and more expensive) radio link.
Eh, that doesn't really fit many games on Steam though. Local multiplayer is a rare thing on PC games. Damn shame.
I've been collecting links to Slashdot comments that recommend local multiplayer PC games. Mostly the problem has been that very few people are willing to either A. carry a desktop PC back and forth between the desk and the living room or B. buy and maintain a second computer that lacks consoles' advantage in ease of use.
But which of the four is the X button?
If you refer to the fact that A and B are swapped and X and Y are swapped between the Super NES and the Xbox, the Xbox was not the first. Xbox inherited this layout ultimately from the Sega Genesis, which predates the Super NES.
The seperate buttons instead of a good D pad is why I hate the all Sony controllers.
I don't have a PS3 or PS4, but the directional pad on at least PlayStation, Dual Shock, and Dual Shock 2 controllers is all one piece of plastic. It has four separate raised segments to avoid Nintendo patents on the cross shape. And in practice, with the thumb lying flat across a PlayStation directional pad, the feel of rolling the thumb from one direction to the next isn't that different from Nintendo's design.
Well, ghost mode would now be gone since the touchscreen is gone too.
Well yeah, that further reinforces my point. OEMs can not afford to sell at a loss (or very low profit margin) and expect to get their money back from game sales.
I'm already putting together a Steam Box that's going to end up costing about 4 times what a next-gen console goes for.
But why? If you can get a near equivalent experience for 1/4 the price, why waste money on hardware when you can get more games. Then again... that Steam box actually won't have many games.
And don't tell me that games looking "slightly better" is worth a 4X price premium.
Fuck that. I want something better, and if I have to pay more for it, so be it. I don't want something that's just "competitive". Fuck that. Valve is going to lose the entire market segment that was most enthusiastic about getting these things.
They should all go work for Microsoft. They released a badly designed, poorly planned product that doesn't really work and everyone hated so they dumped the bad features and fixed it prior to release. Microsoft took 8, sent it to the department of "who even gives a fuck anymore", and came up Windows 8.1 and 8.1 update 1.
My oldest has a hexacore with 8Gb of RAM and a TB HDD and it only cost $350 shipped
Or $1,400 plus monitors plus OS plus furniture for four players.
you have a system that will play console games going back to the Atari 2600
Good luck dumping your authentic game cartridges to create the ROM files you need to play your console games. Last time I checked, Retrode was discontinued indefinitely.
and of course web, video, hell you can even get your work done on it
As for work or other non-gaming uses of a PC, console gaming families are apparently happy with just taking turns on the family PC, possibly adding a tablet or low-end laptop to the mix.
Had a friend that wanted to get into PC gaming but money was tight, found him a nice C2Q system [on a classified ad website] with 19 LCD and KM for just $130
I know some people who are afraid of buying things through classified advertising, given news reports of pickup encounters that have turned violent. And how much for furniture? A console uses your existing living room TV, while each gaming PC generally needs its own dedicated desk.
Yet OEMs accept the low profit margin for sales of commodity desktop PCs. What makes set-top PCs necessarily different, other than that they need a differently styled case?
Is it me or does it look like someone took an XBox One controller and stuck all the buttons underneath rather than on top? I know it doesn't have thumbsticks but the grips and buttons look identical to those of the Xbox One controller and the Steam button is a blatant rip off of the Xbox One button.
Given that this, the Wii U Pro controllers, the PS4 controller, and the Xbox One controller are all blatant rip offs of the XBox 360 controller is there some un-admitted acceptance that the Xbox 360 controller was the near pinnacle of controller design or something? Everyone seems to be cloning the 360 controller extremely closely.
It's not a tablet. Tablets for gaming don't have usefull ways of controlling the game. It's a controller surrounding a tablet connected to a console that has four other controlers connected to it. The controller feel really good for one wrapped around a tablet. Not as good as the Dualshock 4 or anything but still entirely funtional and comfortable. The tablet controller also, while being kind of gimicky, provides a plethora of new possible game schemes. At least Nintendo is trying to do something new.
Same goes for the Kinect 2. That's a super powerful piece of technology that would have gotten no attention if it wasn't forced into gamers' hands. Developers have to rely on people having the tech to develope for it, otherwise it would be way too niche to be financially feasible. I support change and evolution in the gaming universe rather than just enjoying the river of money flowing from release after release of stagnant shooters.
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