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Google patent shows possible controller design for its game streaming service

DonF

Member
I like it! Looks clean and comfortable. The bad, its has a mic...so next time im complaining about a game, google will start showing me ads for grindr or something.
 
Imagine yourself waking up, getting out of bed. You're suddenly in the shoes of an adult professional (if that's not already what you are), who is about to leave for work. You wash up, don your work clothes, and hop into your car. You notice you're running a little early, so you decide to take the scenic route and enjoy a slow drive.

You're driving down an idyllic country road. The sun is rising off in the distance, casting an amber glow onto the earth. You're enjoying the cool breeze through the windows, as the warm light of the sun comforts you and radies you for the day ahead.

Driving along, you take notice of two large animals standing at the side of the road. Curious, you slow down as you pass, and notice that each animal is being led by a man, the two of whom are embroiled in an amicable - but intense - debate. The two men flag you down and welcome you to their discussion, as they are in dire need of a third opinion, or at least, a mediator. You've got the time and these fellas seem nice, or at the very least, entertaining, so you hop out of your car to hear them out.

This man rides his horse to work. The other man rides his donkey. They're both beautiful animals, well-kept, well-groomed, and as far as you can tell, treated well. This comes as a minor surprise to you, because these men aren't farmers or Amish or anything like that - they appear to be working professionals, just like you, dressed and ready for a day at the office. Intrigued, you come to learn that what began as an innocuous conversation about what it must be like to have to ride the other animal to work every day, became a debate about the relative merits of owning, raising, and driving a donkey, versus a horse. And while both men have made great strides in understanding why the other man prefers the other animal, each man insists that a horse, or a donkey, is the way to go to work!

So you hear them out. And their arguments for their chosen animal are quite sound. You can completely understand why the horse rider loves riding horses. You can completely understand why the donkey rider loves riding donkeys. And you understand that these men both mean well. After each man has gone to great lengths to explain their side of things to you, they give you a minute to think, so that you, a man who apparently rides neither donkey nor horse, can weigh your unbiased opinion and deliver it accordingly. And after mere moments of thought, you turn to the men and say this: "...have either of you thought about maybe driving a car to work?"

Both men laugh. The man with the horse howls, "Have you ever tried to learn to drive a car? It ain't near as easy as just riding your horse!". The man with the donkey concurs, saying, "What's the point? Don't you think cars are a little redundant? We've made do with donkeys for years and years, and we got along just fine!". The other man chuckles and replies, "you mean horses, pal!", at which point they resume their jaunty debate. You chuckle a bit too, hop back into your car, and continue your slow drive, knowing full well that if for some reason, you need to go fast this morning, you'll be able to do so without a second thought, because you're not driving a horse, or a donkey. You're driving a car.

I feel like the man driving the car, whenever I read people online arguing about the relative merits of stick placement, and how the placement of a stick will impact the usefulness of a controller. "Your thumb should be on the face buttons playing most games", and "your fingers should have ready access to the right stick when playing specific popular genres"... these are reasonable statements, if you're of the perspective that the 2 stick, 4 shoulder, 4 face button style of controller popularized fifteen years ago represents the apex of the 'video game controller's' potential. And yet, so many of the problems that people see in one permutation of this style of controller or another, have been solved in recent years, through minor augmentations to the traditional controller, including grip buttons, touch pads, and the inclusion of gyro. And despite this, so many gamers will just scoff at the notion that something new, that must be learned, could possibly improve upon that which they already know, as if they don't remember that that tried and true dual-analog setup itself wasn't something that simply came naturally to most of us to begin with. I'll never understand people who just handwave away potential genuine improvements and advancements to control as 'gimmicks', as though their desire for the entirety of game design on a given platform to conform to an input setup that has proven its own limitations time and time again throughout the years is something laudable.
I forgot there's a 5 minute editing window on this forum, so I add this:

I'll never understand people who just handwave away potential genuine improvements and advancements to control as 'gimmicks', as though their desire for the entirety of game design on a given platform to conform to an input setup that has proven its own limitations time and time again throughout the years is something laudable. And I'll never understand how people could become aware of a potential new player in this industry, see a wack-ass controller like that, and think to themselves, "that looks great!". I see this controller and envision a platform that might do little to meaningfully differentiate itself from that which the next Xbox and Playstation platforms are already set to offer. All I can see another 'hd twin' in the making. And it's not like you need a fuckin' Wii Remote to impress me or anything like that, but a bog-standard paddle like this just screams, "me too!" more than it speaks to any ambition on Google's part to shake gaming up on some level that isn't streaming-centic.
 

caffeware

Banned
Chandler-Bing-friends-15707806-500-367.jpg

Is he talking about Ms. Pacman? Cause if so, that's the wrong hand...
If not, I can understand.
 
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Dontero

Banned
Steam input API makes all controllers work as though they are native inputs on the PC, so no all dualshocks aren't 'emulating' a 360 pad, and steam input surveys are indeed accurate about specifically what controller is used.
The DS4 should be more commonly used, because it has a touchpad which can be a substitute for a mouse input where necessary (like menus), but it still has the stupid aesthetic not ergonomic symmetric design.

https://steamcommunity.com/games/593110/announcements/detail/1712946892833213377
817181596da53a62e63586af4a3334433e1e818f.jpg

Most of people who use DS3/DS4 don't use Steam api for their drivers because it steam api is shit when it comes to games outside of steam and most of the time pads don't work with games outside of steam.

PS4/PS3 users use either DS4windows or SCPtools which all naturally makes those pads visible to system and Steam api as Xbox360 controllers. The only legit part about this chart is XboxOne controler data and other. PS4/3 number shows only people connected by steam api itself.

And again my point from before. Up until recently there were no "official" drivers for PS3/PS4 pad for windows so if you wanted to have hassle free pad support you would have to buy x360 controler or with Windows10 XboxOne controler.
Every game treats those controlers as default input method even if you use other controlers.
 
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Skyfox

Member
I like it! Looks clean and comfortable. The bad, its has a mic...so next time im complaining about a game, google will start showing me ads for grindr or something.

Came here just to say this.

It’s the key differentiating feature of the hardware.

Always listening google. That’s a no from me.
 
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Most of people who use DS3/DS4 don't use Steam api for their drivers because it steam api is shit when it comes to games outside of steam and most of the time pads don't work with games outside of steam.

PS4/PS3 users use either DS4windows or SCPtools which all naturally makes those pads visible to system and Steam api as Xbox360 controllers. The only legit part about this chart is XboxOne controler data and other. PS4/3 number shows only people connected by steam api itself.

And again my point from before. Up until recently there were no "official" drivers for PS3/PS4 pad for windows so if you wanted to have hassle free pad support you would have to buy x360 controler or with Windows10 XboxOne controler.
Every game treats those controlers as default input method even if you use other controlers.
Steam API is brilliant for games and programs outside of Steam, so I'm not sure where you're coming from, there. Hell, add a non-Steam game to Steam and you can grab DS4 configurations for the game within Steam that other people have made for that -non-Steam- game, just the same as if it were on Steam.

And your insinuation that most people using a DS4 today intentionally opt to use DS4Windows over Steam API specifically.... heavy doubt, there. In my experience the majority of people who use those tools today are using them specifically because that's what they knew 5 years ago, because they're playing a game that Steam can't hook to, or to avoid double inputs in non-Steam games where it's impossible to disable directinput.

Just the fact that you're able to reference those tools suggests to me that you're something of a power user, though, so I'm not going to accuse you of misrepresenting anything, because maybe you know more about this or about DS4 user's proclivities in general, than I do. Maybe I'm full of shit, here! It's just that I've loved tinkering with controls on PC for years and years now, and Steam API has given me far more power to do whatever I want with the DS4 across a wide range of games, than the tools you've mentioned, which I can concede are still relevant in a lot of cases, even if in my perspective, Steam API continues to outmode those tools in that regard (for example, I've recently used DS4Windows to enable gyro controls on Cemu, but not long ago, a developer released an app for CemuHOOK that lets it process Steam API gyro data).
 
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mcjmetroid

Member
Ah guys can you wait until they actually reveal the controller. That's a mockup.

Also there is no real way that the 3 companies are not seeing this as a threat. I think it should be taken seriously especially if it goes full console and not just streaming .
 
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Dontero

Banned
And your insinuation that most people using a DS4 today intentionally opt to use DS4Windows over Steam API specifically.... heavy doubt, there. In my experience the majority of people who use those tools today are using them specifically because that's what they knew 5 years ago, because they're playing a game that Steam can't hook to, or to avoid double inputs in non-Steam games where it's impossible to disable directinput.

My point here is that that X360 pad pile is not what it seems. And you can see that a lot of people do use DS4 via steam as shown in chart.

That x360 pile is important because it is the biggest pie of them all and there are shitload of people who go into that part even if they don't actually have x360 pad.
 
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