Support NeoGAF

[Kurdel]

That picture is genius and can not be quoted enough!

 

[friday]

Looks awesome, I hate analog sticks.

 

[Vidpixel]

Hmm, consider me intrigued at the very least. I'm holding off any drastic judgements before I get my hands on it, but going by first impressions, it certainly looks much different than any controller I've seen before. I guess we'll know soon enough whether this turns out to be a good or bad thing.

 

[John_B]

Slow your horses. This type of touch interface for movement will be the future. It's more a matter of tech maturity. I think the precision should be great, but the type of feedback is still young.

 

[T4rz4]

You are aware that this is an optional control method, right?

Right now... but... in the future... now i can't see games, you know, first drop games development, later console, then ... scary

 

[NolbertoS]

Looks kinda like a stove heating element ingrained into a gamepad. I really donNt think the industry can have 4 console manufacturers. Hoping Valve and anothet console maker dies so we're left with 2 companies. This industry long term can't support fragmented consoles forever.

 

[Felix Lighter]

One very interesting appeal for me specifically (and people in a similar situation), I have a mouse and keyboard setup in one room but I also have my PC connected to my TV for controller gaming. I have a small wireless keyboard and mouse to navigate windows and this could be a more convenient option.

 

[nickp]

It will be mine. Oh yes. It will be mine.

 

[Orayn]

Haptic feedback is very neat, and it'll be extremely valuable on a controller like this, but it doesn't solve the specific problem of digital input.

I'm thinking it could give a little jolt of rumble whenever a digital direction is engaged. Might actually work of the feedback is precise enough.

 

[kris.]

This is kinda amazing.

 

[Grief.exe]

I think my point of concern here would be: this is clearly a controller designed to target a specific goal (making KB/M games playable on a pad.) But we can also agree upfront that it'll be worse at that than a real KB/M setup, it's just a question of how much worse. If it's a little bit, this could really represent a pretty big shift to making these games couch-accessible. But if it's a lot....

I think the main goal was to make a controller that was comparable to the accuracy produced on M/KB, but also compatible with the entire library of PC games available.

This controller will work with games that are not xinput compatible out of the box, as long as the games can be played with M/KB.

 

[KarmaCow]

Haptics =/= vibration feedback

I mean for fuck's sake, there was a whole section of the article dedicated to that.

Well rumble is haptic feedback, they're also using vibration and force to provide feedback. Valve's system is more complex than a simple motor with a offset weight attached.

 

[Demon Lizardman]

Granted, we don't know until we play it, but I can't see myself playing Farcry 3 or Batman Arkham City on this thing.

 

[Caronte]

You have to stop moving to press the X and Y buttons?

 

[AkuMifune]

I think people are having a hard time understand that this is for PC games in the living room. Playing Civ and the Sims and StarCitizen and DOTA can now be done where it never could before (at least not very well) of course there will be disadvantages to keyboard and mouse but this opens up entire GENRES of videogame in a new location. We don't need another FPS RPG platformed controller.

True for sure. I just don't play Steam games on my TV that don't have controller support. My PC is back in the bedroom with the wife who goes to bed early. If this works I'll be playing Civ 5 all night long.

 

[EdibleExplosives]

I have no clue what I'm looking at but I wanna get my hands on it.

 

[0xCA2]

Looks like it could be cool. I'd like to try it out

They should release a set of videos of people playing games with it.

 

[Wurstsemmel]

Unexpected but I love their intention. If this controller works it could change so many things. Can't wait to check it out

 

[TheCanisDirus]

I don't get it. If those face buttons correspond to the normal ABXY buttons in like a 360 controller, does that mean I have to move my left thumb away from the trackpad just to press Y or X?

If i had to guess... in games like most FPS the "y" and "x" buttons are also likely duplicated by the left and right buttons underneath your palms allowing you to keep your left thumb on the pad at all times while only requiring your right thumb to move off to hit "a" and "b" as necessary....

...or at least that's what id do.

 

[wakajawaka]

The "open to hacking" thing is cool, though.

 

[LuchaShaq]

I would love to see the original Nintendo Wii controller unveil thread, I bet the initial reactions weren't much different to the ones in here.

I still have a lot of questions about this design too, but there s clearly a lot of forward thinking going on here.

And they would be justified. The number if wii games enhanced by the wii more is less than a dozen, the number worse off is ten times as large.

 

[mrpeabody]

A touchpad is fundamentally different from a stick in that the stick is a relative control mechanism while the touchpad is absolute. Like a mouse, you can tell a touchpad to turn as fast as you can physically move. You say "go to there", whereas with a stick it's "go that way".

So this controller has a theoretical advantage over the dual-analog variety, especially when it comes to FPS, where turn speed and aim precision is everything.

Of course, to match the speed and precision of m/kb, the touchpads and the drivers would have to be a million times better than what's out there now. Nobody wants to play Quake on an iPad.

 

[SoldierGryphon]

I know some people are legitimately interested, but I can't help but feel like love of Valve is part of the reason people are defending it. I mean, this controller features nearly every design flaw complained about by gamers in modern game pads.

 

[LeleSocho]

Now i REALLY hope to be chosen for the Steam Machine beta.
I want to try this thing as soon as possible with all the types of games ever existed.

 

[mclem]

Not sure about it, largely because I'm a huge fan of the octagonal gate. That said, should be quite possible to work around with coding, but I'm not sure that putting such an onus on the devs is beneficial

 

[moggio]

You have to stop moving to press the X and Y buttons?

No?

 

[Hylian7]

Isn't the Steam site counting down to one more announcement in 30 hours?

I don't see this anywhere.

 

[Archaix]

This has SIX buttons on the back of the controller.
Each pad has TWO click zones.
There's your extra four inputs right there, and you can remap any of it however you want.

Where does it say there are six buttons on the back? It clearly says there are two buttons on the back, and it seems there are two triggers. Unless there are two shoulder buttons on each side plus a handle button on each grip, and in that case it's still a poor solution because you'd be using your ring or pinky fingers to use the buttons on the handle if you want access to everything.

 

[Dr.Acula]

How well will this work for games that rely heavily on digital movement? Super Meatboy and such?

I imagine it'd feel like playing on an iPad, but a little better cause of haptic?

 

[Felix Lighter]

Looks kinda like a stove heating element ingrained into a gamepad. I really donNt think the industry can have 4 console manufacturers. Hoping Valve and anothet console maker dies so we're left with 2 companies. This industry long term can't support fragmented consoles forever.

I cannot even fathom this opinion. Ugh.

 

[2San]

It's been done on the 360 controller. SC2Cress was a streamer who played on a controller. I just looked and apparently his Twitch channel is gone, so no VODs to show you. It didn't look nearly as bad as it sounds. It sure would take a lot of getting used to, though.

Some people really love controllers I guess.

 

[Jocchan]

I just really doubt that any touchpad an be an adequate replacement for buttons. Those things in the middle don#t count. They are not going to be comfortable for regular game functions.

I think it really depends on how effective the haptic feedback can be. If this was a simple touchpad, I would agree, but apparently it's not, so I'm willing to give it the benefit of the doubt.

 

[solarus]

You have to stop moving to press the X and Y buttons?

Thats what im worried about, button placement seems iffy.

 

[[HP]]

Fuck this is a weird day, i don't know what to think o fit. I guess I'll reserve judgement until I play with it.

 

[intheinbetween]

too ahead of his time?

 

[PTG]

Hmm. Trackpads instead off sticks. That's pretty cool. I would have never thought of that.

 

[jackal27]

It looks like it would be great for shooters... Except that's about the only thing I don't play.

 

[throwawayname]

I like what I'm reading and seeing.

 

[Grief.exe]

That picture is genius and can not be quoted enough!

A vast majority of the issues and questions in this thread are answered in the first two paragraphs of the announcement.

 

[Capital_Five]

You have to stop moving to press the X and Y buttons?

There are a bunch of buttons on the back that supplant them. Those are more function buttons.

 

[chickdigger802]

y'all laugh but this is gonna be the defacto way to play dota 2.

I'm pretty sure that's all they tested it for in the office anyways

 

[EnVy_CaLiBeR]

Trackpads instead of sticks, no D-Pad, and that face button placement. Yeah. No.

I won't write it off completely (will wait for impressions, I guess) but there's a slim chance that I'll ever be interested in using it.

 

[enzo_gt]

Looks like it will hurt my hands.. If I am looking at the right side of it of course.

10x more interesting than SteamOS announcement though.

 

[AkuMifune]

I know some people are legitimately interested, but I can't help but feel like love of Valve is part of the reason people are defending it. I mean, this controller features nearly every design flaw complained about by gamers in modern game pads.

This is the church, this is the steeple. Open your hands and see all the Steample.

 

[Orayn]

Where does it say there are six buttons on the back? It clearly says there are two buttons on the back, and it seems there are two triggers.

Sorry, I meant buttons in the most general sense of "things you can press."

 

[Horse Detective]

Yeah if this is ugly than current console controllers are hideous.


I really like it.

 

[maniac-kun]

I'd be interested to try it but I'm disappointed that there's no d-pad or traditional ABXY buttons. It doesn't look like it would be very good for platformers.

You can still use a DS4 for platformers.

 

[Dinda]

It's always good to try something new, but this looks like it is like something that is created for the sake of being new instead of practical.

My experience from all the touch inputs that i tried till now, is that if i had to use it excessively, like i would have to for movement, it's geting really uncomfortable.

My skin wil get irritated (don't know the right english word), like when you just wipe over a flat surface with you thumb. Of course they will say that isn't a problem because of the material they are using, but i don't believe that one second. Never fellt i that touch controls felt better than actual buttons or sticks.

Don't believe in that one steam. Hope the DS4 works great on PC.

 

[Vigilant Gambit]

Why does the Portal 2 mapping show the left pad as "WASD".

If I still have to move in four directions on this thing because we still can't code mouse aiming and analog movement at the same time they're really missing (one of) the point(s).

It's an example of the controller's keyboard and mouse emulation mode.

On the left pad, touching the outermost circle gives you WASD movement. The inner circle gives you Shift + WASD for walking. Click for spacebar.

On the right pad, the entire pad gives absolute mouse values. I imagine sliding your finger across it will provide the same input as moving a mouse around, scaled to your finger and the game's sensitivity settings. Click for the E key (Use).

The rest is pretty self-explanatory.

 

[PartyTimeFunTime]

The button placement on this thing is horrendous.