Those mapping tools, and many of the mappings, owe a debt to the underrated steam controller.
Failed might not be appropriate, it's still plenty usable in my opinion.
Both those products were meant to be mass adopted, and the steam controller was meant to be the best input choice for both of them.
Lots of things that arose from their steam machine project were more successful than the steam machine, including:
- the steam deck - funding various Vulkan projects - funding Proton development - general Linux experience for gaming getting better (many many patches that were funded)
So it’s not really meaningful to differentiate their intent just by the popularity of their product. The steam machine and the steam controllers were meant to be the every day console and valve certainly invested a ton into trying.
1. It’s an accessory that was an extra purchase when many alternatives existed. So it was competing for mindshare from people who either were using keyboard+mouse, or could also buy a console controller and connect it up. Unless you already researched it, there was no surface reason to own one for many people.
2. Low availability. You couldn’t just find it in any retail store. So you already needed to be aware of it to want it, and then be willing to wait for delivery. So it had a higher bar to cross.
3. Comfort was a big one. Some people loved it. Others hated it. It was too big for many people, and too cumbersome for others. I personally thought it was one of the worst controllers I’ve owned and I have very large hands.
4. The touch controls mapped poorly to many games. If you did buy one, it was really hit and miss how well it worked for your games. A lot depended on either putting in the time to map it out or hoping the community had something.
It just had too much going against it. Which is a death blow for a product that can’t exist by itself and has competition (even if it does more).
The steamdeck in comparison sort of exists in its own niche and is a complete product.
This is a key point that undermines the rest of your argument. Controller support is practically a given today, but when the Steam Controller launched in 2015 there were _a lot_ of games on Steam (even AAA console ports) that were mouse/keyboard only.
[EDIT] To clarify, I mean games that lend themselves to gamepad controls to begin with have tended to support X-Box controllers really well for about that long, and I'd bet that's most of what PC gamers want to do with gamepads. They want to play GTA games or Red Dead on a gamepad—most of them still prefer keyboard and mouse for first-person shooters or isometric RPGs or strategy games or what have you. The market for people who want to replace the keyboard & mouse on games that are best played with a keyboard & mouse is surely much smaller than the set who just want a gamepad as a supplementary controller for platformers and 3rd-person action games, or as the "poor (or space-constrained) man's" flight stick / steering wheel—that larger market is already pretty well-served by cheap used X-Box controllers.
For the games I used it with, it was great, probably the best Dark Souls controller I ever used by turning the right track pad into a simulated trackball. But without a d-pad it ruins it for most fighting games, joystick FPS are kind of shit without a second joystick as there is no more muscle memory to rely on, and it lacks the speed needed for any serious RTS games.
That leaves racing games, and surfing the web.
It does make an amazing remote mouse for watching shows and stuff from my computer while not sitting at it, but that certainly doesn't drive sales. And the one joystick is has is absolutely phenomenal, the smallest deadzone out of any joystick controller ive used and it is super sensitive and precise, which would have been really great if there were two of them. And the haptics was pretty great in my opinion for racing game.
I have one, but only used it a couple times. Don't remember it being a game changer for me but it's been so long since the last time I touched it that I can't remember now what it was like to use it. I'll have to find it and give another try
I'm still kicking myself for not ordering a half-dozen of them when they suddenly went on super-sale on Steam (5€/pop or something)