As Valve continues to tweak its own controller, GDC has another look at the evolving peripheral.
Kotaku editor Stephen Totilo snapped this photo while walking around the show today. We should have a closer look at it — and whatever else Valve is showing at GDC — later this week!
Remember when the Steam controller looked like this?
Comments
10 responses to “Valve Changes The Steam Controller Again”
They realised you gotta have a stick.
…and some sensibly placed face buttons.
While I get that slide pads work great for mouse-like movement (metroid Hunter, kid icarus), you also need to have tactile controls available. I’m glad they’ve caught on to that, but I’m also worried as to why they thought it was ever a good idea to ditch them.
The only downside to the new design is the loss of ambidextrous flexibility. I think most people are resigned to having a handedness forced upon them, but it was a neat design choice I haven’t seen since the DS (and i think it was started by the lynx?).
“I’m also worried as to why they thought it was ever a good idea to ditch them.”
You’d be surprised what goes on in the prototyping stage of any product when the limitations of reality have yet to catch up with the ambition of the project. You really shouldn’t hold this against them as without taking risks you wouldn’t end up with new features like the track pads. I’m glad they had the sense to add the stick, rather than digging their heels in for something unworkable (ie Kinect).
When I was studying industrial design (2001-2005), every man and his dog was trying to make every switch and dial into a touch screen input. This was in spite of mandatory units in ergonomics.
It was dumb then, but there was loads of hype around the new tech available, and it needed to be explored. Designers really should know better by now.
I AM all for experimentation; I design controllers myself, and I’m a huge proponent of split controllers like the wiimote (so comfy) and that htc valve controller.
I guess I’m just too jaded by all the shonky kickstarter designs which rake in millions but will obviously never, ever work. Disregard my old-man cynicism.
Yeah the Lynx was flippable. It didn’t catch on. I’m left handed and I played my friend’s Lynx all the time, but it felt weird. If you are trained todo an action, doing the opposite of that action feels strange.
It works for the DS because it’s encouraging you to act like you are writing, so obviously your dominant hand writes and then the other is just for stuff.
PS: Screw Kid Icarus and Liberation Maiden for their right hand only controls. Jerks.
Yeah, the 3ds broke symmetry. :/
Although I played uprising using a thumb stylus, so it’s much more like stick controls (or really close to the steam controller).
I’ll have to give it a try with the thumb thing. I bought Liberation Maiden and never played it more than once.
I see the Steam controller being great for RTS games. Games where you’d use the mouse to select things etc, much like on the desktop. For shooters, it looks accurate, but cumbersome from what I’ve seen.
Well, just gotta get one and give it a whirl I think…