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[jett]

Gaming with a trackpad. Yeah, no. There's absolutely no substitute for a second analog stick.

Looked crazy awkward having to slide around just to rotate the camera in The Witcher 3. It's like playing a 3D game on my macbook trackpad.

Yes, this looks like proper ass for games that control perfectly fine with a regular controller.

 

[BigMastadon]

Trying to pre-order a Steam Link and a Controller from Gamestop.com but it keeps giving me an error that doesn't say anymore than "OrderSubmissionError" when I go to finalize my payment.

Anyone else getting this? I'm number 54 in the livechat support que. -_-

Came to ask this as well. I wanted to do it through Gamestop since they don't charge until it actually ships.. money is tight at the moment -_-.

Let me know what you find out!

Hoping they aren't already sold out.

 

[Hoo-doo]

The physical analog sticks are only good because of features like auto aim. With the STEAM controller you can use skill, not to mention it's better for PC genres like RTS.

The RTS part, I completely agree. That's a legit good point and a boon for couch PC gaming.

But i'd love to see you compete in FPS (or any kind of 3D game with camera controls) with trackpad dragging as your input method to move the camera. It being clunky as hell doesn't mean you're using 'skill'.

 

[Qassim]

Will I be able to cold boot my PC with this? Hate getting off my couch to do this every time (yes, I'm that lazy). And the thing keeps randomly waking up from sleep mode no matter what I do so I sort of gave up on that and shut it down completely.

Your PC randomly waking up is probably due to Wake on LAN settings, go into your network adapter properties, click 'Configure', go to 'Power Management' and disable 'Allow this device to wake the computer' or check 'Only allow a magic packet to wake the computer' if you want to retain WOL ability but only have it wake specifically when told to over LAN rather than any particular LAN activity.

http://dl.qassim.uk/wol.PNG

 

[ElTopo]

I want to see someone using that for playing a fighting game.

 

[The Wraith]

Just Preordered mine, I hope this thing feels comfortable in my hands.

 

[JoeyJungle]

Yes! Finally all the CRPGs I've bought can be played leaning back in my comfy chair! I've been waiting a long time for this to come out, I can't wait to play The Witcher (1) and Pillars of Eternity with this. And Shadowrun. And Endless Legend. And fucking every PC-ass PC game I own but don't often play because they make my wrist hurt.

 

[Krejlooc]

The RTS part, I completely agree. That's a legit good point and a boon for couch PC gaming.

But i'd love to see you compete in FPS (or any kind of 3D game with camera controls) with trackpad dragging as your input method to move the camera. It being clunky as hell doesn't mean you're using 'skill'.

You don't know how any of this works, as evident by you thinking this works by "tap and drag."

I have a steam controller. I would blow you away in, say, CS GO with a steam controller if you played with a gamepad.

 

[Sorcerer]

I want to see someone using that for playing a fighting game.

You know that someone will master it, not every one of course, but that one person will find a way to kick ass with it.

 

[viveks86]

Your PC randomly waking up is probably due to Wake on LAN settings, go into your network adapter properties, click 'Configure', go to 'Power Management' and disable 'Allow this device to wake the computer' or check 'Only allow a magic packet to wake the computer' if you want to retain WOL ability but only have it wake specifically when told to over LAN rather than any particular LAN activity.

http://dl.qassim.uk/wol.PNG

I've tried all of that. Disabled every single device using that method, USB and ethernet included, and it still happened. I remember running some command to see what was causing the wake up and it still pointed to a USB device that I had disabled for wake up. Gave up after that. May revisit this once the controller is out

 

[rSpooky]

Ordered. Can't wait for October .
Looks great.

 

[Backlogger]

Okay, I couldn't order straight from the web, but it did work from the Steam client. Good thing I had remote desktop...

 

[balladofwindfishes]

I'm a little concerned about the input lag for the Steam Link, so I might hold off on that.

 

[Grief.exe]

Didn't want one before. Want one now.

The power of good marketing. That trailer was well done, should have started there.

Then by all means jump in. You can actually thumb a trackpad. It controls poorly.

You should do some research before you reply more.

In fact, it controls similar like it shows with camera controls in the trailer with the Witcher 3. Tap and drag, tap and drag. I'll give people 2 days before they are utterly sick of it and put the thing back into 'simulate analog stick mode'.

Sensitivity was likely set to extremely low levels. Spinning around quickly rarely translates well to a promotional video.

 

[JoeyJungle]

Your PC randomly waking up is probably due to Wake on LAN settings, go into your network adapter properties, click 'Configure', go to 'Power Management' and disable 'Allow this device to wake the computer' or check 'Only allow a magic packet to wake the computer' if you want to retain WOL ability but only have it wake specifically when told to over LAN rather than any particular LAN activity.

http://dl.qassim.uk/wol.PNG

I have that same problem but have WOL turned off already. I'm pretty sure it's turning on to check for windows updates (it's set for like 2am or something, which is around the time I find it randomly turned on), but I haven't bothered to test that yet.

 

[atomic moth]

Will the Link allow you to load non-Steam games? Can I load different programs as long as they're in my steam launcher?

 

[Nabs]

Will the Link allow you to load non-Steam games? Can I load different programs as long as they're in my steam launcher?

Yep.

 

[Hoo-doo]

You don't know how any of this works, as evident by you thinking this works by "tap and drag."

I have a steam controller. I would blow you away in, say, CS GO with a steam controller if you played with a gamepad.

That's the way the commercial displayed it. That's what i'm basing this on.

How do you use it if not like that? Is it a proximity based drag from the center that moves the camera? If so, isn't that little more than simulating an analog stick only without the physical feedback?

Genuinely interested how the trackpad is used for camera controls here.

 

[Krejlooc]

Will the Link allow you to load non-Steam games? Can I load different programs as long as they're in my steam launcher?

yes, steam will stream anything so long as it is launched through steam. I stream XBMC and origin games using steam.

 

[JoeyJungle]

Will the Link allow you to load non-Steam games? Can I load different programs as long as they're in my steam launcher?

I'm pretty sure it will work it will work with anything you launch from big picture mode.

 

[Unai]

I want to see someone using that for playing a fighting game.

Here you go.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QjBVFcif2kE

 

[zackmorris]

Really hope they can pull this off. Dual analogues are clunky and archaic as hell at this point.

Really? For what purpose are they clunky and archaic?

 

[Krejlooc]

That's the way the commercial displayed it. That's what i'm basing this on.

I'm basing my impressions on experience.

How do you use it if not like that?

Like a touch screen. You don't "tap and drag" you just move your thumb over the surface. The touchpads you are using on your laptops are not ergonomic and they have low resolution and they are not sensitive. This isn't a lonovo touch pad built into a controller.

Is it a proximity based drag from the center that moves the camera? If so, isn't that little more than simulating an analog stick only without the physical feedback?

It can be if you want it to work that way. But that way sucks.

Genuinely interested how the trackpad is used for camera controls here.

The same way a mouse is used for camera controls.

 

[Sargon]

yes, steam will stream anything so long as it is launched through steam. I stream XBMC and origin games using steam.

I have had somewhat mixed results streaming non-Steam games to my laptop. Some work fine, but in other cases I have seen games launch on my host PC but never appear on the client.

 

[Serick]

I'm a little concerned about the input lag for the Steam Link, so I might hold off on that.

Wouldn't the input lag basically be the same as any wireless controller? You're within your own LAN over a 100Mbps connection.

 

[Matty8787]

I'm pretty sure it will work it will work with anything you launch from big picture mode.

In theory but the reality is anything I launch via steam that is a 'non steam game' results in a buggy mess for me.

This is just via streaming, not on the host pc as it works fine there.

Might be just me though.

 

[Willy Wanka]

I'm tempted to pre-order but I think I really should try before I buy in this instance.

 

[Krejlooc]

I have had somewhat mixed results streaming non-Steam games to my laptop. Some work fine, but in other cases I have seen games launch on my host PC but never appear on the client.

That sometimes happens if the program loses focus while launching.

 

[Sorcerer]

Will the Link allow you to load non-Steam games? Can I load different programs as long as they're in my steam launcher?

I could have sworn that Valve clarified that the link will directly stream anything off your pc. Its marketed as a steam link but really can access your entire pc.

Maybe I was mistaken.

 

[JoeyJungle]

Wouldn't the input lag basically be the same as any wireless controller? You're within your own networks LAN over a 100Mbps connection.

I think he means the video latency for the Steam Link. Hopefully it'll work as well as the Wii U.

 

[Nzyme32]

That's the way the commercial displayed it. That's what i'm basing this on.

How do you use it if not like that? Is it a proximity based drag from the center that moves the camera? If so, isn't that little more than simulating an analog stick only without the physical feedback?

Genuinely interested how the trackpad is used for camera controls here.

For a shooter for example, you are simulating a trackball of custom weight and size with momentum. You can flick it and it will continue to spin till it stops, you can drag for accuracy in complete 1:1. You can 180 faster than any stick could:

 

[balladofwindfishes]

Wouldn't the input lag basically be the same as any wireless controller? You're within your own networks LAN over a 100Mbps connection.

I mean the lag between sending the control signal to my PC from Steam Link, then the PC sending the audio/visual signal back to Steam Link.

If there's any noticeable lag, it'll basically be useless.

 

[Krejlooc]

I think he means the video latency for the Steam Link. Hopefully it'll work as well as the Wii U.

Your latency depends on the hardware streaming to and from, and also what sort of connection you are on. When I stream from my host PC, with a 4970k, to my steam machine, with a 4770R, using a wired connection, the latency is low enough for me to play twitch shooters and fighting games without noticeable lag.

 

[FLAguy954]

Ugh, £40 here in the UK. WHY?

And I don't like the two AA batteries. Was kind of assuming it'd have a built-in rechargeable battery as is standard for gamepads these days.

I would have thought that people would be using rechargeable AA and AAA batteries by now.

I have been using them for years in my controllers and remotes so that is hardly an issue.

 

[dukeoflegs]

I didn't like how the wings/handles part of the controller in previous versions and it looks like they didn't change that in this model. It didn't feel ergonomic to me, it made my hands feel like they needed to be more flat, instead of rotated more vertical like in a neutral position.

 

[Sorcerer]

For a shooter for example, you are simulating a trackball of custom weight and size with momentum. You can flick it and it will continue to spin till it stops, you can drag for accuracy in complete 1:1. You can 180 faster than any stick could:

Is there setting to simply hold in the direction you want to move, similar to a d-pad or a stick?

I thought there was a choice of movement styles.

Edit.

Nevermind I think I get i now.

 

[Shy]

Just had to borrow the money to pre-order,will i get it in October, because it still had that banner when i got it.
But i think that not everybody will get it then.

 

[BadAss2961]

Yes, this looks like proper ass for games that control perfectly fine with a regular controller.

Agreed. Some things are best with a regular controller, and some things are best with KB/M. I'm sure it'll work well with some games, but this best of both worlds attempt looks like it'll half ass both sides in most cases.

 

[Nzyme32]

Is there setting to simply hold in the direction you want to move, similar to a d-pad or a stick?

I thought there was a choice of movement styles.

Yeah, it's completely up to you. Choose the most popular config, or choose the layout and simulated inputs you want. Some games will have native support in which case games can really do a whole bunch of things that could be really unique, but even without that you could have your own setup to suit you

 

[Opiate]

I guess they look suboptimal to me for anything that requires 3rd person world movement.

That small moment in the video when you see the user having to swipe his thumb multiple times to move Geralt really stood out.

I have on ordered now since I think it's the only controller compatible with Steam Link.

Absolutely, I didn't mean to suggest that the Steam controller is the final evolution of game design that plays everything best.

I was trying to suggest that every controller has strengths and weaknesses, and will play some genres better than others. There is no "universal" controller that plays everything the best.

As new genres and game types take the stage and become increasingly popular (again, things like MOBAs and puzzle/strategy games like Clash of Clans or Candy Crush), the traditional console pad happens to be suboptimal for these emerging game types. It does not mean that all game types are best on this new Steam controller or anything, and I definitely agree that an open world third person game may control best with a game pad or keyboard and mouse. If you happen to particularly prefer open world third person games (GTA, Witcher, etc.), then this Steam controller may not be ideal for you. That's my guess, anyway.

 

[Sorcerer]

I would have thought that people would be using rechargeable AA and AAA batteries by now.

I have been using them for years in my controllers and remotes so that is hardly an issue.

Supposedly it has an 80 hour battery life, similar to the Wii Pro Controller. It should alleviate the burden of changing batteries a bit.

 

[Apoleptica]

Controller looks terrible for fighting games and platformers.

I sadly agree with this. Sort of need face buttons for certain games. The controller seems amazing for playing RTS games from a couch though.

EDIT: Please disregard, I didn't notice that the controller actually had buttons.

 

[Serick]

Controller looks terrible for fighting games and platformers.

I sadly agree with this. Sort of need face buttons for certain games. The controller seems amazing for playing RTS games from a couch though.

The controller has face buttons and an analogue stick?

 

[jester_]

You don't know how any of this works, as evident by you thinking this works by "tap and drag."

I have a steam controller. I would blow you away in, say, CS GO with a steam controller if you played with a gamepad.

This is super interesting to me! If your skill is at 10 when you use a mouse, how much of that are you able to transfer over when using the steam controller, in your opinion? (0-10)

 

[Krejlooc]

How the controller actually works:

See that big, round, circular pad directly above the thing you're wishing was a d-pad? The thing your thumb naturally extends over? It acts as a d-pad.

And contrary to what someone else posted earlier in this thread, the touchpads are suitable for platformers.

You can also use the cell phone screen as such, but a flat surface doesn't look like the best substitute for a physical D-pad to me.

the difference being a cell phone screen is touch activated and provides no tactile feedback aside from vibrations, where the touchpads can be switch activated to provide a real, literal, physical button depressing.

In other words, the difference between sliding over glass with every slightes contact being represented as input, and depressing an actual button on the left side of the pad to move left, with only that button being depressed being recognized as input.

Which is a pretty huge difference.

Why do those directions need to be separate buttons, anyway? I just can't see an actual benefit to it.

Because they're not directions as separate buttons. They're a cluster of 4 buttons that are labeled with directions. And I explained why they "need" to be like that - because a d-pad resides in that location on most other controllers and developers/beta testers demanded a consistent labeling scheme to make on-screen prompts match in games with legacy support.

EDIT: To explain better, because people honestly still sound confused about how the touchpads work and feel (and because a number of people parrot incorrect inferences about the way the touchpads feel based off of visual inspection -- I.e. "the pad can't be used for fighting games very well"):

The two touchpads are actually two dish-shaped giant buttons that physically depress. They have the throw of an average playstation or xbox or nintendo or sega controller button, to the touch, when you depress them, they feel like giant, concave buttons in the center of the controller where your thumbs rest. The surface of these buttons is a capacitive touchpad, meaning that these two buttons can tell where your fingers are on the button.

These two buttons are attached to powerful and advanced actuators that provide haptic feedback. Most people don't fully understand what haptic feedback is - the most complex haptic feedback that most people have felt is rumble from a controller or phone, which is blunt and not directed. The haptic feedback in these touchpads is much more advanced - in addition to being able to set duration and strength, you can also set sound and direction of feedback. So, where in a typical controller you feel blunt rumble - a sort of blob of haptic feedback that just occurs in every direction in your hand - these touchpads give you localized rumble that only each thumb feels, and that rumble has direction.

There appears to be a lot of myth and misunderstanding about how this haptic feedback feels to the user. I'll admit my previous vocabulary in talks (not necessarily on this board) may not have conveyed the sensation these cause well enough, so I'll be more deliberate with my words. You don't feel buttons or shapes with this haptic feedback - haptic feedback won't make you believe there is a smaller, circular button residing in the top portion of the right touchpad where the triangle button would reside on a playstation pad. Haptic feedback isn't that advanced yet.

What haptic feedback can make you feel, however, is inertia and motion. You've no doubt heard people lament about how good the right touchpad feels as a replacement for the mouse, because when they swipe their finger across it, they feel like the pad is spinning in that direction. They can feel it spinning, they hear it spinning. Their thumb feels like it's in a trackball, and that trackball is rotating in the socket. That's the direction of the haptic feedback. By vibrating localized portions of the pad in concert, and moving the areas that are vibrating, it can simulate the feeling of inertia. Given the dished shape of the pads, this translates, in our heads, to the feeling of controlling a ball. We can spin the ball in any direction we wish, and we'll swear we're feeling a physical ball spinning in the direction our thumb swiped.

Haptic feedback is not the solution to making you feel like you're depressing a button. But the good news is that the thing this haptic feedback is occurring on is a button. A large one that takes up the amount of space that d-pad or analog stick would. Even better is that the same effect we use to make us believe we are spinning a ball with our thumbs can be clubbed and shortened to feel like we are rocking a ball around a pivot. Doing so is very simple to do, and valve's own legacy support already includes this. When I move my thumb the left side of the left pad, I feel like the pad is rocking to the left. I feel like it's shifted and now my thumb is slightly tilting the entire pad to the left, like a rocker d-pad would feel.

Now here's the current problem - valve's legacy support accepts input upon contact with the touchpad. In other words, it ignores the fact that they are buttons, and instead activates upon contact. So, while I still can feel the pad rocking in place, it's too slippery and I can't rest my thumb anywhere without recording input.

The good news is that A) valve has a mode in beta where you need to press the button to activate input, turning the touchpad into a large, physical d-pad that they demoed to the super meatboy devs, and B) devs like myself are making the preference for an activator switch heard and, at least recently on the steamOS dev forum, they said they're working on bringing such a mode to public.

To conclude, when you combine the need to physically depress the button to activate input, combined with the ability to make it feel as though you are rocking the touchpad around a central pivot, along with the physical groves on the touchpad that you use to orient yourself, you find functionality that is as good as any d-pad out there. I know, I've tried it myself. I've done tests using this setup in native mode. It honestly works.

Anybody bitching because those 4 buttons in a diamond formation, labeled up, down, left, and right, won't feel like, say, the sega saturn d-pad and thus won't be suitable for platformers or fighting games or whatever are missing the point. You already HAVE a d-pad of that quality right in front of you. This stuff is still in development, that's why it's not in stores right now. The kinda of kinks I'm describing are precisely why it's in beta, so they can be ironed out by launch.

tl;dr: the touchpads can actually be superb d-pads, and everything you want the 4 buttons to be.

Okay, so the track pads do an excellent job of emulating a trackball(making them decent to good mouse replacements) and rocker-style d-pads. How well do they emulate an analog stick or the classic 4-button diamond? If they do both of those things well, combined with anything they can do that more traditional controller bits can't, I say the dual track pads positioned at the thumbs' natural resting position sounds like a great step forward in controller design. You have all of the major thumb controls in one, can shift to the pair of thumb controls most relevant to the game or even on the fly, and you minimize the need to move the thumb to a secondary thumb control. Not to mention that you can swap direction controls and action buttons without needed a non-standard controller.

well, by virtue of the touchpads knowing where your finger is on the dish itself, it can approximate an analog value from the center. Meaning the controller knows how far away from the pivot you're pressing down. In that regard, it can operate like an analog input, but it certainly doesn't feel like an analog stick. It's hard to explain what it feels like since it's not pressure sensitive either. It's really unlike any analog controller I've worked before. If you notice, the touchpad is separated into 3 rings by ridges - these "zones" can be defined within their legacy controller mapping software to correspond to different values. So like, the inner ring might be walking speed, where the outter ring is running speed. You can do things like assign modifiers to different zones to simulate analog movement from keyboard presses too - doing stuff like making shift be held when you press on the outter ring so that you'll be running in most PC games.

As for simulating a 4-button diamond... it could do that, I guess, the same way it can imitate a d-pad. but it's not very optimal to work like that, because you don't feel the shape and feel of each button as I explained before. It's possible, but I don't think many people will choose to have it work like that. With Sonic all-stars racing transformed, for example, I don't map anything to the touch portion of the right pad, and instead just use it like a single, huge button (think the gamecube controller and it's A button) and rely on the shoulder/trigger/paddle buttons on the back.

Something I guess I forgot to go into detail about in my last post is that there are two modes for the controller - legacy mode, which has the controller acting like a gamepad/keyboard/mouse, and this is the mode everyone has tried and talks about. In this mode, the point is to make those touchpads act like conventional controllers, which it does to varying degrees of success. The other mode, that people don't talk about as much (because there is no commercial app that fully explores it yet) is native mode. In this mode, the controller is a blank slate, and you program your game to use the controller any way you want. This is a much more involved control pad than a traditional controller, in that it can operate in ways unlike any other controller before it. I've said several times in this thread that I've done tests with HL2VR using the steam controller trying out different input methods. My favorite method I've put together so far is a mix of classic doom-style mouse-walking controls and a push-to-activate d-pad. That is to say, when you touch the left pad (but don't press the buttons) then your touch is interpretated as relative input. Meaning, when I put my thumb on the touchpad, that becomes an origin, and when I swipe my thumb across the pad left, I move left X number of small steps, where X is the number of "clicks" my thumb has moved (clicks being the term people are using to describe the sensation of the haptic feedback to gauge input - when you "spin" the touchpad, you hear/feel clicks as it moves, not unlike the center wheel on a mouse). That sounds confusing if you haven't held the controller, but it's intuitive. That sort of control is used for walking speed -- using the touchpad as a d-pad as I described in my previous post makes you run in the cardinal/diagonal direction you press.

It's a control scheme unlike any other I've used and it feels really good. In the heat of battle, you find yourself able to make very fine corrections to your position, while normal walking feels like any other d-pad. I've relayed my experiments with other developers on the steamOS dev boards and sent my suggestions to valve in the last survey. I've heard of other people coming up with similarly radical controller implimentations in native mode - I heard one guy who was using each touch pad as a left/right foot control, where you slide your thumbs down to take steps, each slide down representing X amount of distance traveled where X is the number of clicks passed. Stuff like that.

I really don't think people will get this controller until they hold it in their hands, and until enough people have developed with it to figure out what works and what doesn't.

As for the arrow buttons, if the track pads emulate a d-pad as well as described, if your using the arrow buttons, the trackpad is probably being used as an analog stick replacement and the game is using the arrow buttons for something that doesn't require a proper d-pad.

correct, that's indeed how it's meant to work

Still, it sounds like Valve's dual track-pad design might end up being far more versatile than the dual analog design that has been the standard for the last decade and a half.

It's pretty versatile given the amount of freedom you have to make it work in a variety of ways. The use of each pad might vary greatly from game to game. For aiming, it's vastly superior to an analog stick due to the fundamental ways they work (analog sticks control the acceleration of a camera's movement, the touchpads set a position for the cameras to actually reside at) and really approaches the usability of a mouse. To give an example of how different and empowering the controller is, I played DOTA2 the other day with it. DOTA, with a gamepad, from my couch. I wasn't awesome or anything, of course, but it was fully playable. Such a game isn't really playable at all with a conventional gamepad unless you want to get destroyed. And this is an actiony-genre that console gamers would like, not something like Civ as often cited.

Sounds great, Cooljerk. The way the haptic feedback works sounds pretty awesome, actually, the idea of feeling like you're rolling a trackball or rocking a pad in any direction makes me grin. I REALLY want to try out the controller at some point.

I look at the thread over at NeoGAF, and I see more than a few people either confused by the design of the 'd-pad' or saying "why isn't this a traditional controller, this is dumb" without even thinking that, perhaps, that's what the 360 pad is for. Valve making the same damn thing would be redundant. Innovation sometimes requires throwing out aspects that some people would consider essential to the thing you're working on, in order to see if you can't replace it with something better. Valve making a dual-stick controller would be pointless. Working out the kinks is what the beta is for, but the 'traditional' front button layout and shoulder buttons are about the only traditional thing Valve are gonna be doing with the controller, everything else, they're trying something new, and I applaud them for it. The dualshock design should not be the be-all and end-all of controller design.

I don't really like the word innovation because, these days, it has certain connotations. People describe innovation as inherently superior, a novel way of doing stuff that automatically assumes improvement. Hence why you'll see the opposite sentiment being thrown about as "innovation for the sake of innovation." It feels like a marketing term at this point.

I don't think valve necessarily sees themselves innovating. I think they see their controller more as refinement and redesign. It's a controller with two goals in mind - one, to take keyboard and mice and refit them in a way such that they work on a gamepad as smoothly and seemlessly as possible, and two, to build a new style of controller that offers more methods of input than a traditional controller with greater fidelity. A lot of the requests people make about changing the left pad to an analog stick or whatever stems from their desire to make legacy mode feel better, without taking into account what those sorts of changes would do to native mode. Going forward, valve wants games made with native mode in mind, so the faults this has in legacy mode aren't necessarily driving the design.

The coolest thing about the steam controller is how it works on the low level. It's not emulating a keyboard and mouse, it is a keyboard and mouse. As in, it gets recognized as such in it's default legacy mode. When you reconfigure these controllers in Steam and launch the game, there is no translation software going on, nothing driver level, nothing in between the controller and the game. The secret is in a reflashable firmware on the controller - every time you change the config and launch a game, the controller's firmware is flashed with your configuration. That means it's actually remapping the buttons on the controller itself, not in software.

Where this gets really cool is when you take this thing to a non-PC that isn't running steam: it still works. It's literally a keyboard and mouse. I've used my steam controller on a windows 98 PC - played System Shock 2 with it. I've used it on a playstation. I've used it on my mobile phone. I used it on my dreamcast. You can use it on anything that recognizes a keyboard or mouse, because it is a keyboard and mouse.

Very cool stuff.

 

[Nzyme32]

I sadly agree with this. Sort of need face buttons for certain games. The controller seems amazing for playing RTS games from a couch though.

We already know it works well for platformers since the creator of Super Meat Boy tried that and Spelunky and had no problems. Fighting games haven't been shown off yet, but then again, maybe it won't be so bad when platforming can be done well.

 

[Hoo-doo]

Is there footage of high level FPS played with the steam controller?

Because as much as you guys swear it isn't there, there's still that lift and drag action of the thumb that's making it look janky as hell. It's like a hybrid between a Lenovo clit-mouse and a laptop trackpad.

 

[Apoleptica]

The controller has face buttons and an analogue stick?

Wow, I honestly have no idea how I didn't notice those. Embarrassing, I take back what I said.

We already know it works well for platformers since the creator of Super Meat Boy tried that and Spelunky and had no problems. Fighting games haven't been shown off yet, but then again, maybe it won't be so bad when platforming can be done well.

I didn't even notice it had buttons, I'm an idiot please disregard my post lol.

 

[BigMastadon]

HEADS UP:

If you are ordering through Gamestop.. do the order separate from each other. Me and another user had been having an error when buying both in the same transaction.

I was just able to get the Link and the controller by separating the transactions (same price paid as if they were combined). Gamestop also doesn't charge until it ships.

 

[viveks86]

That's the way the commercial displayed it. That's what i'm basing this on.

How do you use it if not like that? Is it a proximity based drag from the center that moves the camera? If so, isn't that little more than simulating an analog stick only without the physical feedback?

Genuinely interested how the trackpad is used for camera controls here.

Apparently there are several ways this can be configured, apart from sensitivity. And simulating an analog stick may very well be the most intuitive for camera controls. However, by getting rid of a physical stick and trading off some of the familiar tactile feedback, you end up getting a lot of configurability, such as addtional button mapping for tap along with click. Given the size of the track pad, you could probably even configure an inner circle for stick simulation and the outer circle for 4 or 8 buttons. It's all going to take a heck of a lot of relearning, but the potential is clearly there