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Comment by yongelee | Hacker News Reader

should be titled: how STEAM is saving the PC industry.

Given their work with the Steam Link and Steam Controller, I think you have a valid point. Steam Link supports DualShock and XBox controllers, and can stream via network from a PC located elsewhere in the house, making PC a viable competitor in the "couch gaming" space that consoles have thus far dominated.

I agree with you about the steam link. It now allows me to play couch co-op games in the living room without having to drag my computer into the living room. The steam controller however does not seem to have as much use. I tried using it on several games in my library and was not satisfied with the amount of control I got. A wireless keyboard and mouse could give me a better experience.

I've had a bit of a mixed reaction with my Steam Controller experience. I find the trackpad approach innovative, and the configuration options have incredible depth, but that depth also creates complexity and a steep learning curve. I think it can be a viable replacement for controllers in certain genres, and it can make other genres "couch" viable which previously weren't (turned-based mouse-driven games, for instance).

I think it will find its own niche, overlapping some of the games which were previously keyboard/mouse exclusive as well as some of the games previously XBox/DualShock controller exclusive.

Although I agree that the steam controller will make previously mouse/kb only games viable on the desktop and was probably designed for that, I've been surprised by how much more pleasant it has made gaming with games designed for a traditional controller.

For example, Dishonored plays fantastically well with the steam controller. You have all the advantages of a traditional controller, except the camera control is much more precise and mouse-like.

And although the steam controller may never compete with a mouse and keyboard for games like CS:GO, r/SteamController is reporting encouraging findings, with people claiming to be surprisingly competitive using a steam controller by utilising dual aiming (trackpad for large, coarse movements and gyro for tiny correctional movements).

The bottom line is that for me a steam controller is a massive improvement over a traditional controller, it is like it takes the best aspects of mouse+kb and game controllers and combines them in one package.

Console makers should take note, but unfortunately at this point outside nintendo the traditional console makers are very unwilling to innovate with the base controller.

Erm. When you play Call of Duty on PS/xBox, you're playing with controller against other people with same controllers.

When you'll join a PC server with your steam controller, you will have 0 kills and 20 deaths, because everyone is playing with a mouse.

That is not fun.

Steam controller helps with, I don't know, 10% of the gaming - the single player. And if you're casual and single player is 100% of your games - hell, buy a Wii U, because PC has zero split screen games.

There is a lot of user customization possible with the steam controller though. e.g. This guy is trying out layering inertial control on top of the touchpad for aiming. Generally I do prefer using a mouse to aim instead of a controller for first person games, but I will try this out:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GKuO9M0WuMg&feature=youtu.be

(disclaimer - I work at Valve but not on the steam controller so this technique was a surprise to me)

For all the innovations in the hardware, it was the software that really blew me away. The amount of customization available is staggering, along with the ability to share profiles online and see which ones are the most popular for a given game.

If any of the popular game consoles were to implement something similar for their own controllers, it would be considered a "killer feature".

There are plenty of games besides Calladoody that are playable on both PC and console, many of them even non-competitive. I'll be especially happy to be playing Fallout 4 at 60+FPS on my PC instead of 30FPS on my PS4, and now I don't have to choose between playing it at my desk or on my couch.

That is very fun.

As for local co-op on PC, it could use some improvement, but there are already more local co-op PC games on Steam than Wii U.

http://store.steampowered.com/tag/en/Local%20Co-Op/#p=0&tab=...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Wii_U_software

Steam and the indie game community. No longer do players have to pay $50 to MAYBE get a playable game, they can pay $10 and get just as much game play from an indie dev.

I agree with this. Steam has hundreds of titles that are worth the $5 or $7 they charge. You could never bring a title like that to a console without jacking up the price.

Lately people in my social circle have been getting together on a weekend afternoon and playing a cheap game. Usually they don't have much depth, but if I get four or five hours of play out of a game that cost $4 I'm happy.

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