Valve introduces Steam Controller

This past week Valve has made a string of announcements that involved making Steam more accessible to people from their living rooms. It all started Monday when they announced SteamOS, a brand new Linux based operating system designed for “living room machines”. Wednesday they announced Steam Machines, the official birth name of that “living room machine” and a chance for the public to test their baby in a hardware beta. Today, Valve has made their third and final announcement and this one… is out of control! Pun intended.

Steam Controller is a modern looking new input method with dual trackpads, haptic feedback from dual linear resonanant actuators, a touch screen and physical buttons. It’s a stand alone controller that will work with your current setup and Steam Machines. Valve says it will not only support the Big Picture catalog, it will support the full catalog of Steam games through a “legacy mode” that acts as a keyboard and mouse. You can use the on-board configuration tool to create and share bindings and configurations for your favorite games.

Traditional gamepads force us to accept compromises. We’ve made it a goal to improve upon the resolution and fidelity of input that’s possible with those devices. The Steam controller offers a new and, we believe, vastly superior control scheme, all while enabling you to play from the comfort of your sofa. Built with high-precision input technologies and focused on low-latency performance, the Steam controller is just what the living-room ordered.

This controller aims to make games that were traditionally played with mouse and keyboard on PC, like FPS, RTS and Simulation, more approachable through the convenience of a gamepad and the comfort of the living room. Valve has spent a year testing the Steam Controller and needs our help to perfect-it. The Steam Controller and Steam Machines are being shipped together and sent to 300 candidates at random free of charge for testing (find out how to participate in the hardware beta here). You only need to sign up once so if you received a Steam Hardware Beta Candidate badge from signing up after the announcement of Steam Machines you’re good to go.

The silver lining in all of this though and the reason why I’m so excited is that this bridges the gap between gaming on a “traditional gaming console” and gaming on PC. Maybe now the war between consoles and the discrimination between input methods will be a thing of the past because PC Gaming is no longer intimidating. Gamers that would typically run out and buy one of the more traditional gaming consoles will think twice and strongly consider the long term benefits of purchasing or building a Steam Machine. The idea also promotes growth within the industry for developers. Now that a solid plan for a new platform is in place, developers of Triple-A to Indie games will consider stretching their legs out on more than one platform instead of confining their efforts to one, which is something far more important to gamers than what their avatar will look like. The big picture here I think is FREEDOM because without FREEDOM the natural experience and driving force of playing and enjoying any game is lost. Maybe I’m in dreamland with this whole thing I don’t know? I have my own set of standards and views about the industry. I’m optimistic and tend to put a lot of faith and trust in some developers to flip the industry on it’s head in an effort to be innovative.

As of today Valve is now focusing it’s efforts on the specifics. They plan to discuss the design process of the current prototype machine and give detailed specs for their living room model next week. Head over to the Steam Universe community group for all the specifics. You can also view the full list of FAQ on Steam Machines here. I look forward to more details in the coming weeks.

SOURCE Steam