Steam Controller
store.steampowered.com
store.steampowered.com
For Valve to bring PC gaming to your TV/Couch, they really needed to nail the interface. I imagine they have spent many iterations on the problem, and I am very excited to see the fruits of their labor.
[1] Full disclosure, by some odd coincidence she happens to be my sister and also did the industrial design for Lockitron so I am wayy biased here.
The analog trackpad does have an advantage over a keyboard but not over a mouse, i think.
With two analog sticks/trackpads/mice/etc. you can get the same range of control over both. That's what the two "planes" give you.
In most FPSes your move commands are binary, "W" or nothing. You can alter them a bit with combinations, Shift-W to sprint or perhaps Ctrl-W to crawl but you're still limited to a handful of preset speeds.
I could easily imagine being able to use a continuous axis to encapsulate walk/jog/sprint being quite a bit more intuitive and precise.
I don't understand the problem with traditional mouse+kb for couch gaming. I've been using it for years and haven't encountered any drawbacks (using wireless mouse+kb combo). Am able to play online FPS and RTS, both of which require extreme precision and extreme low latency, at very high levels.
You use a solid mousemat, place that on the couch beside you. The keyboard goes in your lap. Kick your feet up and game away. It works great.
This controller looks like trying to reinvent the wheel, and I just don't think that it'll work. The problem which all of these schemes have is that they make you uncomptetive versus mouse+kb foes in multiplayer games. No one has ever been able to match the precision and control of mouse+kb, and even if this solution is far better than previously attempts, it will still likely not be anywhere near the traditional control.
For 'casual' single player games, it'll work great. I'm sure that's a large part of the market for SteamBox. But for the hardcore, it probably won't work at all. I think they'd be better off finding a solution which incorporates traditional mouse+kb than trying to work around it, but that's just my opinion from the outside looking in.
Edit: Rereading your comment, I guess you might mean PC gamers who are sitting on their couches. I don't think that's the market this is after; it's trying to get console gamers onto Steam by providing them a cool new product that will work well with the games they have. This makes that a much smaller shift for those gamers than the keyboard and mouse. Will they still get owned by more traditional PC gamers (since they're now competing directly), as you suggest? I guess that's possible, but that's just saying "console gaming needs to stay separate", not "they should use a keyboard and mouse for console games", which just isn't on the table any more than PC gamers are going to switch to a handheld controller.
See: CoD, Battlefield, Quake, etc. All prefer exact aiming with a mouse over fudging analog input sticks with aim assist.
By your wording, no, console gamers don't use keyboards / mice, because the games they play on consoles are not compatible with them, and are not designed to use them. Very few genres (fighting, brawlers) sometimes prefer controllers to keyboards, and when they do it is usually a personal choice, or the market has better alternatives to both (ie, fight sticks).
Mouse is a pointing input - for a movement of 1 unit, your view changes by 1 unit. If you stop moving the mouse, your view stops moving.
Controller stick is a velocity input - for a movement of 1 unit, your view starts moving at a speed of 1 unit. If you bring the stick back to center, your view stops moving.
It could be that the Steam controller trackpad is precise enough to be a pointing input sensor, which could enable precise aiming. But it's too early to tell before the first reviews are out.
Joystick calibration utilities, for instance, tend to take stick position as a position input, and ISTR a number of PC sims that preferred joystick input but could use a mouse like a non-auto-centering joystick.
From what I can find online, the PS3 controller is 10-bit per axis (1024 positions on either axis), the Xbox 360 is either 8-bit (256 positions) or 16-bit (64k positions.)
A 25-way joystick of the type you describe wouldn't be usable for most console games, whether as a position or velocity input.
Much more important is the platform market share for hardcore games, like CoD and Battlefield. It simply isn't true that people prefer the PC version [1], despite the inferior controls. CoD sells vastly more copies for console than for PC [2]. It's not even close.
If Valve wants to break into that market and compete with Xbox and PS, it needs a controller.
[1] Though I do, and it sounds like you do too.
[2] http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/31995/Exclusive_Black_Ops... (I recognize this doesn't include Steam sales, but the point still stands)
Who buys retail games anymore?
Console will always be at disadvantage to the PC in this genre due to its low frame rate (usually 121+ fps is considered slandered for the genre in order to make use of a 120hz refresh rate). Consoles currently output about 20 - 30 fps, not really acceptable for competitive play in a FPS.
"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, and by all means keep using whatever input method makes sense for you. Rest assured, we won’t abandon you. We love mice and keyboards, too."
And the problem here is not negligible. CoD series games will be miserable to play with a gamepad versus mouse+kb'ers, and those games would likely be quite popular on SteamBox.
"why not find a solution which incorporates mouse+kb instead of avoiding it?"
It sounds like they feel the same way to do. Mouse + Keyboard is already viable across a very wide spectrum of games. They don't need "a solution which incorporates mouse+kb", because that already is a solution (as you note, there's no real problem there).
However, for those that want a controller experience, there's not a viable solution. Controllers work across a pretty narrow spectrum of games. That is the problem that they're trying to address.
If you want/need to sell something in the millions, it kind of needs to be least common denominator. Gamers understand controllers as the basic interface for tv gaming, so they will buy them.
Gamers don't buy keyboards to put on their TV's so Valve is being smart by not forcing a square peg in a round hole. They want the Steam Machines to sell. A mouse and keyboard won't sell.
If you haven't tried before, I highly recommend doing time trials with KB+M. It's a completely different game.
1. cultural expecations. consoles have controller gizmos. people expect it. its a different experience than just running an HDMI cable from your PC to a TV and calling it a day. Its a console. It lives next to your TV all the time. Its supposed to have a controller, because Nintendo's NES had one back in 1985. Cultural expectations and traditions are a powerful force.
2. there are many games that are actually superior to play with a controller than with a mouse and keyboard. Platformer games come to mind. Thats a major genre of consoles and always has been, and alot of indie game companies are exploring the genre again on the steam platform. At the moment I have to use an XBox controller plugged in to my PC to play. If Valve offered their own controller I'd gladly use it instead (assuming its good).
I suppose my "complaint" is that they could do a better job of bridging the gap, but perhaps I am wrong. You do make a good point that the mouse+kb may be too cumbersome for some (most?) consoler switchers.
I do wish that I could see what sort of solution Valve could come up with if forced to keep the primary mouse+kb, though. Some sort of streamlined solution which you partly imagine in your post.
I always wondered if something like that would be possible.. So you'd have all your precision mouse movement without the akward balancing of loose things while sitting on the couch, or getting up and sitting down.
hoverfield: http://www.correlatedmagnetics.com/products/hoverfield-non-c...
http://www.wired.com/gamelife/2007/12/phantom-keyboar/
Aaaand looks like the keyboard actually made it to market, there's even one on ebay. I had no idea.
Someone did some tests a while back with a gamepad-trackball (trackball replacing the right thumbstick). They found that pro PC FPS gamers did just as well with it as with mouse+keyboard, after a short adjustment period.
Here's some quotes from the most recent attempt (out of three that I know of) to crowdfund one of those (http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/485185897/revolve-goes-w...):
"...I attained a level of accuracy I had never experienced without a mouse and keyboard combination." - Gerry Block, IGN
"You will spend less time fighting your controls and more time fighting bad guys." - Grant Collier, Co-Founder of Infinity Ward and Co-Creator of Call of Duty
Of course it failed anyway, because gamers all went "LOOKS DUMB LOL" and refused to read further. I was really hoping that Valve's controller would be a trackballpad; if it actually made it to market, I'm confident that ongoing positive reviews would lead to popular adoption.
It is a reason that console games come with built in auto aim on all FPS shooters...
But come now, my original statement was hardly all that bold. Obviously the reason that gamepad aiming sucks is just that thumbstick aiming sucks. Replace the thumbstick, solve the problem. (And as a bonus, get analog movement as well as analog aiming--the traditional WASD doesn't allow for speed gradations.) I used to game exclusively with a trackball and never had any troubles. The only reason I stopped is that nobody makes trackballs for left-handers anymore that are any damn good. And if you don't believe me, I just gave you a couple of quotes from gaming professionals.
As for Starcraft, you're right, it wouldn't work; not because of the pointing device, but because a gamepad doesn't have enough buttons to manage all the hotkeys. In my original post, I called out FPSes specifically for that reason.
I've played console games with three other people scrunched up on a love seat; lying on the couch; sitting crosslegged on the floor; and sprawled out in a beanbag chair. Sometimes I get tired of having my hands in my lap, so I stretch them out behind my head. If I want to relocate, I can keep playing as I walk across the room, or pause and carry the controller in one hand and my drink in the other.
That's the sort of flexibility I want in a "couch controller," not just sitting still on the couch by myself.
the thumbs trackball is more precise. But still not good. A good and cheap microsoft mouse is always with me when i'm playing FPSs.
Also, even if the control wasn't an issue, no trackball has more than 300DPI. EVER. The minimum for mouses is 400. I don't know why that is. But even the overly expensive Kensington ones are crappy even to click on a 10x10 button on regular usage, let alone to headshot in a FPS.
My 1600DPI L-Trac disagrees.
I have trouble believing that any device that relies on thumb-only input is going to be anywhere near as good as a mouse, but I hope I'm proven wrong.
I used a Logitech Trackman for seven years, and the biggest issue was that the force required to move the ball around wasn't constant; it would vary depending on how gunked up the little rollers inside had gotten. I had to clean mine out every day to keep it smooth.
When you read into the details of these two pads they're developing, it sounds extremely exciting.
Some of the highest resolution and performant sensors ever put into a controller.
When combined with the supposed "configuration utility" whereby we have hopefully powerful control to map and bind to will, I can see this being a big win.
I like my 360 controller for PC gaming for many reasons: pain from mouse/kbb overuse being one, comfort when sitting and playing for another, and the simple fact that many games are made for controller and ported to kbb/mouse as well.
So you talk about an ergonomic, high quality, extremely performant, Linux native, configurable, built-for-PC controller?
Color me very interested.
defaults write .GlobalPreferences com.apple.mouse.scaling -1
defaults write .GlobalPreferences com.apple.trackpad.scaling -1
The positioning on the Steampad helps, too. Imagine a D-pad or thumbstick built into your laptop in the place where a trackpad normally goes. That's what laptop trackpads are like.
There's just no way to judge a controller without physically holding it and walking an FPS mile with it as your shoes.
I spent the early 90's going from one giant, gaudy "flight stick" to the next, never knowing that what I really wanted was a pair of miniature thumb-sticks. My mind is wide open to stuff like this.
I'm down to my last one that works perfectly, and considering building a USB one since all of the joystick parts are still manufactured and available from CH.
http://ec3.images-amazon.com/images/P/B000IBRN7O.01-ABT3ZC4T...
Given 15 different controller designs, use logic to figure out what order you test them/build them. But at the end, it comes down to the feel.
Touchpads (and mice) don't work like thumbsticks.
Touchpads/mice measure a vector with the size equal to distance traveled. Thumbsticks measure a vector with a size equal to the deflection from center.
Thumbsticks are terrible for mousing tasks (e.g., moving a virtual cursor [rts games]), and mice/touchpads are terrible for thumbstick tasks (e.g., playing a racing/flying game).
It's a controller, it will never be as precise as a mouse. Trust me when this thing comes out people will be complaining about how they're suddenly losing every game of TF2.
It'll be interesting to see how well they manage to deal with this.
Keeping thumbs oriented seems to be the biggest challenge of a controller like this, but I as hoping the haptic feedback would help keep your thumbs in place.
Maybe its just all of us aren't used to doing those tasks with a controller as we are used to it by a mouse (btw long time halo veteran so am more comfortable on controllers for FPS games) but i think a learning curve would prevent high level players from switching to controllers becuase it would (albeit temporarily) really shunt their skills
Best of all, worst case, I can fall back to my trusty 360 controllers and use those without a hitch, so even if this is a disaster, it doesn't sink the platform (as can be the case with other platforms)
Nothing stopping the community doing the same thing and sharing the results with everyone, though!
The ergonomic buttons like the triggers and rear buttons are best for actions you need to perform while moving. There's six of those in total. Compare to WASD and a common 3-button mouse setup: the mouse buttons, shift/ctrl, and the easy-to-reach keys 1234EQZXCF. So yeah, you won't have as many quick-reach keys available to you. I would grade the keyboard keys as a bit harder to reach though because you have to take fingers off movement to hit them.
I don't see how this markedly improves over current controllers and their integration. The key genres for which the current controllers don't work, such as RTS, don't seem to be that much better off with this solution. Maybe its just a lack of imagination on my part, but I will have to see more to be convinced.
From the announcement:
> Even the older titles in the catalog and the ones which were not built with controller support. (We’ve fooled those older games into thinking they’re being played with a keyboard and mouse, but we’ve designed a gamepad that’s nothing like either one of those devices.)
(Yes, i know Civ isn't an RTS, but it is a strategy game that is unplayable on a stardard controller)
The only games that are even harder are very fast RTS like Star Craft 2.
I cant imagen that it will work well, but Im open to beeing suprised.
You're not really arguing whether the Steam controller is bad -- you're simply saying any gamepad would be bad for Starcraft/RTS.
This is likely never going to change -- unless an RTS is designed from the early stages of development to be usable on gamepads, no gamepad will ever be acceptable for a game like Starcraft that requires 40+ actions per minute at the very lowest levels of play and 300-500 actions per minute by the professional level players. I doubt that there will ever be any controller better suited for a high-micro RTS than the keyboard/mouse combo (except perhaps some kind of direct brain-signals-to-game-input method in the not so near future ).
Just about anyone who plays RTSs would agree that trackpads are completely unacceptable for input. For a game like SC2, you might as well not even play, because you would be lose so badly at against anyone at a similar skill level.
Looks like a nice new thing, not as different as the kinetic or wiimote, but not more of the same either.
[...]
"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."
Wow.
It sounds as though they have managed to combine mouse-like precision with the simulated, tactile feel of a physical, analog stick. I suspect that there will be user-defined settings, so that you can set the precision of the tracking, allowing you to achieve the perfect "free look" (a.k.a. mouse look) and standard character movement, based on how much pressure you tend to personally (and independently) apply to each surface.
That is very compelling.
The one in particular that I find most interesting is the one for the upcoming Hyperkin RetroN5 -- it's a six button bluetooth controller with a microswitch based thumbpad (much like the ones that came with Neo Geo home units from the 90s).
http://hyperkin.com/blog/2013/03/retron-5-details-revealed-f...
For example, it would be very difficult to do an ultra move in Street Fighter IV on one of these pads -- i.e., quarter-circle-forward x 2 (LP + MP + HP). A standard d-pad with tactile buttons is much more precise.
People who learned Capcom fighting games on normal pads are usually OK with triggers, but I learned on a stick, so using the triggers goes against my muscle memory as I still use a stick regularly as well. My fighting pad, however, is much more portable than my stick.
Most fighting gamers prefer to use wired USB fighting sticks anyways, and given that those sticks tend to work out of the box on most operating systems, I would expect them to work on the Steam Machines too.
IIRC, Steam only really has three modern fighting games (SFIV:AE2012, SF vs Tekken and KoF13) -- I don't know that Capcom or SNK would plan to port those Windows games over to Linux anyways -- you'd likely have to play them streamed, and I'm not sure that any serious fighting gamer would want to do that.
Fighting games will probably still require an arcade stick. I've tried playing these games with an Xbox controller, and while it certainly works better than a keyboard, it still sucks. Gotta have the stick.
From the pictures, as it mentions nothing in text, it looks like they have setup dual zones on the trackpads. If they do allow user defined settings, I hope they will allow you to adjust different precisions on the areas - allowing for use of the outer ring as quicker turning, faster running and the inner rings for more precise aiming and walking. That would definitely help a transition for PC gamers, whose mice can be swapped across a mousepad quickly or slowly for fine tuning to the gamer. Many gamers also use a button on their mice to realtime change the DPI for more precise aiming.
But I'm not going to count it out. I'll reserve all judgement until I get to try it. And that's the only real sticking point for me on this announcement; everything else about this controller I love.
For that alone I'm very interested, obviously also the fact that they're trying to make things quite open.
I would tap and drag for little and precise movements, swipe for fast movements, and press the button for default movement. With some training, it can become pretty natural.
I have always usually done this, but also remapped the trackpad to be entirely a "scrollpad"
Yep, and you can also click and release the middle mouse button, then separately mouse up or down. Interestingly, I have only been able to get either this OR the press then scroll behavior you described working on Windows (by toggling a setting), but in Linux you can have both enabled at the same time.
I do use a tiling window manager and bindings like Vrome/Vimperator, so my use case is probably atypical. My mouse usage is limited to when I deem it absolutely necessary; I hate physical/mental context switching, and bringing my hand from keyboard to TrackPad/mouse/whatever is a huge context switch.
I would use it so much more if it was between H and J.
How do you stretch your finger towards the middle of the keyboard with no issue? Stretching just to type a letter is fine for me (think Y, H or B), but staying on the TrackPoint is hard.
Possibly a shocking statement here but I went from a top end 2010 MBP to a 2009 T400 running windows 7 and am much happier as a whole, even though I have my head in UNIX machines a lot.
I actually have no idea how people can use touchpads. You need a huge one to be able to go corner-to-corner in one swipe and still have reasonable accuracy.
I mean, given the option of a physical mouse, I will always prefer that over both nub and track pad -- and the physical mouse requires the most movement away from the keyboard (of course, to avoid all three mouse input methods I use keyboard shortcuts when possible).
Anyway, my reasons for preferring the nub are:
* Less movement required on the actual input device. Just a slight tilt of the finger can move the mouse cursor from anywhere to anywhere else.
* Higher accuracy. This one may be subjective, only personal applicable, and/or biased, but I think the nub just makes it so much easier to navigate compared to the touch pad.
I use the nub on my thinkpad, but only because Lenovo's touchpads are truly woeful.
I'm glad they went a different route, it opens up more options for gamers and developers.
As a PC gamer, I'm super-excited for this gamepad because it will beat the ever-loving-crap out of a joystick for games that depend on a pointing-device (strategy, RTS, no-aim-assist-FPS games). It might not measure up to a mouse, but it could still provide a "good-enough" experience unlike a thumbstick.
Joysticks can do this, too, but their DPI is frequently nowhere even close to acceptable for this kind of work - they tend to be somewhere in the 200-400 DPI range, when your average mouse tends to be capable of input at several thousand DPI; if the touchpad resolution is good enough, then I think they're going to have a winner on their hands.
The problem is that you can't.
There are just too many different type of gamers having different requirements. Given Valve's lineage, their core audience are the FPS/PC type gaming crowd who are used to keyboards and mice. And this controller makes sense for that audience.
While I'm interested in the Steam Machines, I would never buy this controller for myself, because I'm into fighting games and old-school console type games. And even though the Steam Controller isn't for me, the great thing about Steam Machines is that they're still computers at heart, which means that I can probably use just about any other controller out there if it has USB connectivity and identifies it as a standard HID.
A trackpad seems like it will very easily allow your thumb to drift from a position of sending maximally-distant-from-center input to not registering any input. That's going to be a huge usability problem.
And making assumptions about what a user might have meant should a thumb just happen to slide off the edge of a trackpad is going to be problematic. [3]
[1] What would you call a 360 or dual shock controller with analog sticks that have no tension-to-center anymore? Broken.
[2] Think of how often you feel/hear that little analog stick "clack". Think of how often you're pressing against that physical boundary to ensure maximal-distance input. Each of those moments is an opportunity for a trackpad to present a problem. And those moments are awfully common. It's likely they're more common than not.
[3] did their thumb slide off, or did they raise it? did i slide off on accident or on purpose? etc
EDIT: cleaned up phrasing
But the lack of tension is going to be a bummer for action games regardless.
We tried that relative-to-an-absolute scheme on our iPhone FPS and it was very confusing. The best scheme was a relative-to-a-relative center where the origin would "follow" the thumb, but then we had a full screen to do that.
The problem with a relative-to-an-absolute scheme (even one with the little raised circle) is you have no idea where the thumb is until you touch the control but then it's too late.
Not saying it can't be done, it's just a little bit tricky.
I am super-excited for this. Finally a way to bring FPS (without aim-assist) and RTS games into the living room. I don't even care about the OS and the box itself, I crave this device. Even if it doesn't measure up to a mouse, it will still be a massive improvement over the traditional thumbstick for pointing-device-oriented games.
My only disappointment is that I wish they'd added a scrollwheel to the right shoulder. Then we'd have a full mouse control-set in your right hand. The scrollwheel is nice for zooming and panning in RTS games.
I hadn't thought of that at all. Including two scrollwheels would be doubly expensive and thus kinda wasteful, and including only one means giving a south-pawed middle finger to the sinister folk.
Many games use mouse wheel for weapon switch, and something else for choosing secondary-items (e.g. grenades in Far Cry). You could use it to queue up preselected groups of chat commands usable with the touch pad ("enemy in flag room", "enemies inc to mine", etc), use it for a throttle control (!!), or all sorts of things.
Having two scroll wheels instead of one is not as bad as you might think -- and even just using one still lets you remap them as you see fit anyway.
Only drawback of this is you couldn't control zoom and view at the same time (which I guess FPS pro's do, but mere mortals like me don't).
Somehow, I never actually imagined two trackpads – my concept had always been a D-pad on the left and a trackpad on the right, mimicking the traditional mouse-and-keyboard setup of the PC first-person shooter, but this makes far more sense and allows for much more flexible repurposing of controls to different games (as well as letting left-handed gamers flip their controls).
This is, at last, the controller for FPS games, and more importantly, for the next generation of non-shooter first-person games. It's amazing to see the horrified backlash in the comments sections on gaming sites right now: People just don't get that this isn't for the button-heavy games they already play; it enables new interactions with new kinds of environment-based experiences.
I wasn't particularly interested in any of Valve's announcements earlier this week, but they certainly have my attention now.
> The Steam Community can use the configuration tool to create and share bindings
> for their favorite games. Players can choose from a list of the most popular
> configurations.
The Halo two-analog-stick model that has taken over the genre was always awkward and imprecise compared to keyboard/mouse (probably most of the skill in Halo was simply getting used to the stick dead zones and the acceleration/deceleration of the look field). I will be happy to see it fade away.
While I might be slightly more accurate at aiming with my mouse, actually moving around with a controller is considerably better for me. To each their own.
If you're moving your arm to move your mouse, there is probably something wrong with your mouse.
IIRC I've always been old that I should move my whole arm with the mouse. The idea being that it's a small movement for your elbow/shoulder but a much larger movement for you wrist so you can avoid wrist injuries by moving your whole arm.
I mean, those same ergonomics guides also tell you to keep your back straight and your feet flat on the floor in front of you. How many people do that?
If your arm is up in the air so that it can move the mouse, then it will get tired after a few hours, won't it?
Also, I frickin' hate analog sticks for controlling shooters. After having been a semi-serious CS player, I just can't bring my self to enjoying my severely crippled aiming on consoles, it just takes 50% of the fun out.
http://cdn2.store.steampowered.com/public/images/promo/livin...
[1]: http://cdn2.store.steampowered.com/public/images/promo/livin... [2]: http://cdn2.store.steampowered.com/public/images/promo/livin...
Yes, looks like both of those are triggers (or buttons) on the back.
I generally like more buttons instead of all these other things consoles use, you can easly have four buttons on the back, maybe more. The PS always used to have two shulder buttons, witch I did not like because you either had to us your index finger for both. I imagen something where they are just in the back where my fingers naturally would be.
As others have already mentioned, it is less obvious whether this will be a good solution for platformers and fighting games. But with a bit of quick pondering I suspect it could open up a huge range of options for any developer who wants to try and step outside the normal "the player will use combinations of button presses to trigger actions".
For example, a platformer which rather than using a "tap button to trigger a small jump" and "long press button for a larger jump" we could not only see a "small up scroll = small jump" and "long up scroll = large jump" input method, but also a "slow up scroll = slower jump" and "fast up scroll = faster, more explosive jump".
Fighting games could also open up a lot of depth based on the length and speed of right hand strokes, not to mention the variety of angles and rotations which could be made.
The more I ponder it, the more I'm hopeful.
Clang will like this.
The real question is how well the track-pad works as a D-pad. For Mario-style games that primarily use left and right but don't do much up and down? Should work fine.
For a Capcom-style fighting game with its elaborate rolls and whatnot, or the hyper-precise of a shmup? That's the real question.
Fortunately there are gazillions of USB controllers out there that will probably work out of the box with the Steam Machine. Many of the BT controllers will probably work too.
I find the Steam Controller interesting because it's the first console-type controller I've seen that might actually do a good job satisfying people coming from the PC gaming world.
More than even the games (which, I suspect, will also mostly be available on other consoles or PCs), this intrigues me enough to want to get a Steam Machine. (Still, though -- that's a bit of a cumbersome name.)
For that matter, the PS4 controller is the same except with a small touchpad in the middle.
Calling the 360 controller "brand new" is a big stretch. It wasn't that much more different from the old Xbox Controller S than the Xbox One controller is from the 360's. In terms of technology the One controller with trigger-specific haptic is actually a bigger change than the Controller S->360 which was pretty much just button layout changes.
In any case, if something works well, why change it just for change's sake? I love Valve and I'm excited to try this controller, but put me on the list of people that are very skeptical this will actually be an improvement for the types of games that play well with two analog sticks.
They have done nothing revolutionary of course but nice stady evolution.
There first controller was complet BS of course but after that it was pretty good, better then sony in my mind.
The PS3 controller, however, was kind of awful in comparison. Really light, horrible triggers. And they fixed that.
Saying the new controllers are the same except the features they have for the sake of marketing (Touchpad, and rumble triggers) is disingenuous.
If this doesn't work, valve can forget about it and move on HL3.
If anything this is the most "un-safe" the console market has been in awhile.
It's interesting that they seem to have designed it largely to be used with existing game designs and input requirements in mind, but they've also made something that can create totally new input patterns and uses. The clickable joysticks on the playstation and xbox controllers were sadly never fully usable by designers because they don't work in a scenario where you want the player to click and hold but still be able to navigate with the stick. Obviously the haptic trackpad solves the click and drag to select mechanism that an RTS demands, but think of all of the other things that a click, hold and drag might be able to do in something like a boxing game, an FPS, a shmup (dual stick ikaruga on one pad with a game designed for it?) or even something like QWOP.
I really hope they make this available to more people.
Holy crap wait what? Not highlighted in any of the diagrams but visible in the teardown graphic, there's an extra pair of buttons on the back in ring-finger position too. They said 16 buttons, so it's two front touchpad/buttons, 1 front screen/button, 3 nav-buttons (the bars along the bottom) 4 face-buttons (a/b/x/y) 4 shoulder-buttons and 2 hidden back-side buttons.
Realistically, the other 4 buttons (the 3 bars on the bottom and the touch-screen) don't map to normal gameplay buttons, whereas a Sony/XBox gamepad will only have two of those "non-gameplay" buttons.
So technically, this thing has 2 fewer "gameplay buttons" than a typical controller. But it has a touchscreen, and you can put a lot of the low-reflexes stuff in there.
This is harder, because you're essentially forced to calculate (in a low conscious way, of course) distance/speed to know for how much time you should turn the stick.
We'll see of course, and since the controller will be "hackable" I think there will be many way to use the controller for many types of games.
Edit for spelling
There's no fundamental reason this has to be the case, of course; if the developer wanted to, they could use stick input as position rather than velocity. Conceptually, this is no different than using a high resolution trackball.
My suspicion is that the difference is more of a calculus problem. Moving my thumb on the trackball by a given amount changes my position by a proportional amount. On the other hand, for most games, moving my thumb on the stick by a given amount changes my velocity by a proportional amount. To put it differently, if I'm aimed at a stationary target with my trackball, I remain aimed until as long as I don't move my thumb. With a stick, if I'm aimed at a stationary target and don't move my thumb, I'll keep turning at a constant rate.
Like the first expensive optical mouses, trackpads will get more and more resolution and get cheaper and cheaper.
Initially, I scoffed at this design ("Of course it's not as good as a mouse for FPS games!), but then I thought about it. Traditional gamepads aren't just a little bit worse than mice for FPS's. They're utter shit. You have to completely rebalance a FPS for gamepad users because they're so clumsy compared to a mouse&keyboard user. Still, gamepads are ergonomically fantastic for what they're designed for. Sitting on a couch, surrounded by buddies, they can't be beat for comfort and compactness.
Trackpads are a lot better than gamepads for precision control, but they're still inferior to mice. This is no surprise. A mouse is centered around a single (okay, sometimes two) point(s) of laser-powered high-precision optical sensing. A trackpad is a giant array of sensors that are trying to approximate your intent from where the center of a mushy blob of flesh is mashed up against it applying pressure. Multi-touch gesture commands can help compensate for this in many applications, but a FPS really demands a single, focused, high-quality stream of user input, and the mouse is still god, emperor, and king when it comes to that!
This steam controller is intermediate between a joystick and a mouse, and Valve is being honest about it. It's not going to be as precise as a mouse, but it promises to be better than a joystick. Yeah, that sounds wishy-washy, but only until you consider just how long the joystick has been with us. We're talking about a method of input that hearkens back to the first automobiles ever built. It's a big honking lever for applying force to a mechanical steering apparatus! The joystick was not birthed out of the need for precision input, but rather, out of the necessity to amplify human strength. This controller, albeit an obvious evolution once you've seen it, is genius. If Valve succeeds in delivering it, all existing gamepads will be rendered obsolete. I don't know if the steambox will succeed because of this, but I know I'd rather use one of these than the XBox360 controller I (very) occasionally dust off to play console titles that have been (incompetently) ported to the PC!
Even if the steambox is an utter failure, I think this controller will be a runaway success. I know Gabe has a huge grudge against Microsoft over their app store, but both MS and Valve could benefit if steambox controller support was baked into the Xbox One. Ditto for Sony and the PS4. This controller could change the course of the console wars.
http://i.imgur.com/HYOmoQl.jpg - Racing Wheel and Pedals
Flying games?
http://i.imgur.com/ejf4hPf.jpg - Joysticks
Fighting games?
http://i.imgur.com/2lrevkG.jpg - Arcade Sticks
There's one device that works best for every single game genre, and mouse and keyboard is that device for FPS games. Why do people expect one device to match the functionality of all of the above inputs. They're vastly different experiences, it's simply not going to happen. Controllers work great for action games, platformers, and overall, they're the best well rounded device. They're not designed to compete with the above controllers, they're a general input device, so they're not going to be as efficient as something built for a specific task.
If you're a hardcore FPS gamer, bring your mouse and keyboard into the living room, or play at your desk. This is no different than someone buying a wheel if they're into racing simulators.
I think Valve is achieving an even more well rounded device. By the sounds of things, it'll improve the FPS and RTS experience on a controller. It'll most likely make sacrifices to achieve that goal. For example, fighting games might work better on a more traditional controller. However, the Steam library has a much higher number of FPS and RTS games, so that trade off makes sense.
All of these game genres exist on consoles, and all of them are most typically played with a game-pad. While specialist devices exist for most genres of games, the gamepad is the default generalist that plays them all. The steam controller promises to be a better generalist. Don't underestimate that.
I'll probably build my own Steam box but I'll definitely be buying the Steam Controller. I think this is what they wanted us, the hardcore PC "gaming master race" to do, while at the same time offering it up to OEMs for consumption by the console folk.
<3 Gaben!
The Y and B buttons look difficult to press. Given the arc that your thumb travels on pivoting from the base of the controller handles, it may make sense to shift the buttons down and towards the center.
I would also consider removing the on-controller screen. It adds a big per-controller cost. Also, when have these been successful? Neither the Wii U nor the Dreamcast did this idea justice. Was it just bad implementation? I think its just a bad idea.
OK, that solves that problem, so I agree with the decision, but why even have a screen on the controller then? Seems like an unnecessary added cost, when most players will never actually look at it.
This device is for Valve's massive library of PC games that need a keyboard and mouse that are normally unplayable in the living room (unless your living room includes a desk, in which case it's not really a living room now is it?)
Personally, I am keenly interested in a better, more standardized and streamlined gaming PC, but I'm not at all interested in yet another game console with limited controls, centralized publisher model and locked down OS. (And please, don't insult your intelligence by saying something along the lines of "but you can always plug keyboard in". It's not a matter of what you plug into the system, it's a matter of what UI design the system encourages.)
I don't see how they are turning their backs on anyone just because they're venturing into a new market segment.
The current system, where people have both gaming PCs and separate gaming consoles, doesn't make a modicum of sense practically. It's just a vestige of old monopolies and corporate competitions which led to this state. Ideally, one could just have a gaming machine with less of a distinction between whether it's a "PC" or a "console".
> I'm not at all interested in yet another game console with limited controls, centralized publisher model and locked down OS.
I thought one of the points of the Steam machines is that they're not locked down at all.
Same way Microsoft turned its back on PC game(r)s with it's "Games for Windows" brand, which really is "Games for XBox shabbily ported to Windows".
I thought one of the points of the Steam machines is that they're not locked down at all. Will it run games not distributed through Steam?
Given that SteamOS is supposedly an open, Linux-based platform, I don't see why it wouldn't? It's pretty much just a standard Linux system that boots into a full-screen entertainment interface (an extension of Big Picture mode) by default.
Switch into the desktop interface (there'll be a key combo), download and install whatever you want, and add it into Steam as a non-Steam game so you can launch it from Big Picture mode.
Also, you could install another OS on it and dual-boot quite easily if you wanted. It's a PC.
I don't see why not - Valve has stated that the source code for Steam OS will be available. I presume that it's only Steam (and perhaps some drivers) that will remain proprietary.
Also, yes, I imagine you can run anything at all on the Steam machines.
That PC market is literally the entire point of this device. It's meant to get you mouse-like interactions on a handheld controller.
If you want to sit down on the sofa and play a PC-style game? It's this brand new gamepad concept or nothing else. There is nothing like this thing (well, except maybe that crazy alpha-grip thingy, but that's freaking weird).
I had thought for a long time that it'd be nice to have a one-handed analog stick controller for my left hand, covered in buttons on the back, coupled with a mouse. It would actually give me finer control over movement than a keyboard, but with the aiming capability of a mouse.
This device isn't exactly that, but I'm really interested in this device to see how it helps with my RSI when gaming. I'm also curious as to how the haptic feedback will work. Maybe I should sign up for that beta after all!
Personally, I won't buy one -- I don't intend on getting a steam machine so I'd only be using it with my computer anyway, and I don't think this will ever beat a keyboard/mouse in terms of practicality and ease of use.
But that aside, I'm glad they are at least trying to make a next-generation controller -- gives me hope there might one day be a controller I actually like. Though I'm not particularly hyped about the controller-specific features via API. For a game system that usually ranks accessibility very highly, the idea of device-tied game features strikes me as a somewhat regressive move, even if the features themselves are progressive.
Then I realized how much mindshare the gaming community is giving a game that doesn't even exist a week after a game launches to the tune of a billion dollars.
The man is smart.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceOrb_360 [2] http://www.rahulsood.com/2010/07/console-gamers-get-killed-a...
Looks effing comfy.
Compared with the traditional mouse-keyboard controller for FPS games, it easily surpasses the keyboard part as the movement controller. It may or may not have the precision of a mouse as pointing device. But with the haptics feedback, and the comfort of playing from the couch, I can see myself preferring it over a mouse.
The most interesting part, is that with this fresh, even innovative design, it looks capable of opening new gameplay styles. I can't wait to try it, and even design software for it.
I just hope the Linux drivers are open source, if they're not piggybacking off bluetooth or something.
Just find it funny that the future in late 2013 is still something requiring that our hands are held so closely together.
The face button layout also gets to me. That's going to require some serious mental gymnastics to re-wire 20+ years of face button layout muscle memory to use this in some games (edit: especially platformers).
A retrogaming pad would be nice as an additional peripheral to sell, but realistically you can use any existing bluetooth gamepad with Steam.
err "You can’t make a sentence into a question by just putting a question-mark at the end?" <--- it's a question now.
I wouldn't buy one before trying it.
I've been living room gaming w/wireless mouse+kb for years and years now. No problems at all doing this from the couch. Kb in your lap, mouse by your side with a hard metal mousepad.
Also, why have Valve bothered to spread the announcement over 5 days? Surely this whole deal would've been more beneficial to be a keynote style announcement with some actual demos of the tech in question?
As great a product as it may be, in my opinion there's an awful lot of excitement surrounding the announcement that Valve will eventually announce something ... next year ... probably.
I think I'll reserve my judgement on all of this until I can actually use it, or at least see it in use.
Trying to play sniper with a controller is just hopeless.
Heck, as someone who doesn't own a console, this might finally get me to play games on my TV.
This is how you really make a Game Controller.
With two trackballs, perhaps one of the wheels can be used for moving the screen, and the other for moving the mouse.
They've implemented a "chat-wheel" with common in-game phrases to help with communications as well, which seems to be a perfect fit for controller play.
I just can't wait for the day where I can invite people over, buy an 80" TV, and play Dota 2 split screened on controllers!
First problem: wires. Solution: wireless. Easy.
Second and largest problem: you need a surface. If you're on the couch you don't have a mouse surface. You could use your pants or couch cushion as a surface, but that's obviously not ideal.
Third problem: non-mouse hand. It needs a controller for movement. It can't be a keyboard, nobody is going to want a keyboard on their couch. I'm thinking something like the numchuck of the Nintendo Wii, except with additional buttons. You could experiment with either an analog stick or trackpad for your thumb. Again, it's not for aiming, it's for movement. Your mouse is for aiming.
I remember this actually not being too bad. I didn't use it over the D-pad for any precise movement, but part of that was the awkwardness of having to stretch the thumb over the the touch screen. There also was a little thumb pad on the DS strap you had to wear to get it to work smoothly, and that was a little clumsy to use. It was also hard to get a sense of where the neutral zone was, etc., since the only indication was a diagram under your thumb.
It looks like this controller takes that same idea and improves on it. You won't have to stretch your thumb or wear a thumb pad, and the circular trackpad maps better to a joystick than an arbitrary circle somewhere on a touch screen. It also looks like there's ridges on the pad, which could help with getting a sense of where you are.
If it was sort-of viable as a side feature in a nine-year-old game, I'm optimistic about Valve's ability to make it work. As you said, it's not like Valve is unfamiliar with the area.
That and the bolted-on character switching mechanic combine to make my memories of M64DS less than kind. A shame, I loved it on N64.
But still, I trust Valve to do a better job than that, since they're betting the whole platform on this kind of interface.
Already exists: Bluetooth mouse + lapdesk.
> Third problem: non-mouse hand. It needs a controller for movement. It can't be a keyboard, nobody is going to want a keyboard on their couch.
I use a lapdesk + laptop + mouse on my couch all the time (yeah, I could ditch the lapdesk and mouse, but a mouse is so much better than a trackpad, etc., that its worth it), so I don't see the problem with a small (e.g., netbook sized) keyboard + mouse as a couch controller combo, with a lapdesk -- for a dedicated gaming controller, design the a dedicated surface with the bluetooth connection and directly attach the mini keyboard and mouse to it and you're done.
Do you really think that the mouse which was invented in the 60s (mother of all demos) is the pinnacle of technology regarding input? It is for now (I do agree with your premise for my own personal reasons) but such a bold expression seems a little, how should I put this, small minded.
I feel this is an interesting direction to experiment on.
You're kind of pushing what he said. He's referring to gaming, and probably shooter games. A mouse is definitely the most precise input device for shooters, or else you'd see professional eSport FPS players using laptop trackpads.
"the Steam Controller’s resolution approaches that of a desktop mouse"
The mouse currently dominates all forms of commercial gaming input.
The joystick was invented in 1908, but it is still in fighter jets today, isn't it? Who gives a shit how old it is?
What I was hinting at is that though the mouse is currently the best form of input for a lot of games (ANSI the reason why I don't have a console, I don't like gaming without a mouse), does that mean we should stop trying to find other forms of input device?
I didn't mean the age statement negatively, just to point out we've had this tech for a while, so maybe it's time to look for other ways to go, instead of 'building a faster horse'.
In 2060 who knows what will be the top form of input for gaming. It might be this controller, it could still be the mouse or it may be something we haven't even dreamt of yet.
When I said track > analog sticks I didn't mean laptop track pads but valve's. However not even valve is suggesting its better than the mouse for games like counter-strike or dota2