Valve has revealed a surprising new dedicated Steam product.
The Horipad for Steam is made by Japanese video game peripheral maker Hori, and they worked with Valve to make it especially for Steam. As reported by Techspot, the controller is loaded with features, but may be missing some things fans expect.
A quick look at the controller will likely tell you everything. Like other Horipads made for other platforms like the PlayStation 4 and Nintendo Switch, it features an Xbox 360 controller layout. Unlike Valve’s bespoke Steam Controller or the Steam Deck, it doesn’t have any form of touch pads to ease playing PC games based on mouse and keyboard.
But the jury is still out on this one, partly because Valve didn’t share a lot of details on the controller. It’s only being sold in Japan for now, so maybe if Valve and Hori work out a global release for the product, they may share more in the future. At least, if the most avid of gamers don’t beat them to the punch and import and figure it all out first.
What we know is that there are four extra buttons, two pedals at the back, and two smaller buttons under the d-pad and right analog stick respectively. Machine translation indicates it will also have rapid-fire and gyro, but if I know Hori, they may do the gyro in the same way that they did it in the Horipad + for Switch.
And by that what I mean is that the Horipad + for Switch doesn’t have a real gyroscope or acceleration sensor in it. Instead, they have a motion aim feature that mimics gyro. When you activate motion aim on the Horipad + for Switch, you can tilt the controller up, down, left, and right, to duplicate the right analog stick input.
If that sounds clever but cheap, that’s certainly how the Horipad + for Switch feels like. Really, Hori doesn’t always put the most expensive parts in their peripherals, but it must be said their own solutions are still very good. Case in point, Hori’s D-Pad Controller for Switch is only useful for replacing the left Joy-Con with a proper d-pad controller, but many gamers swear by it.
Hori may have invested more than usual with the Horipad for Steam with touch sensors that are found in the analog sticks. We don’t know what this is, at all, so we wouldn’t dismiss it outright. Could this be another clever solution so Hori doesn’t have to make touch pads?
Horipad for Steam will also let you switch between digital and analog inputs on the triggers, switch between X-Input and SteamInput, and connect between wired and Bluetooth. Note that some of the abovementioned features only work on SteamInput.
And of course, there’s that familiar big Steam button. The Steam button will launch Big Picture mode, and open the Steam menu if you’re in-game. There’s also a separate quick access button duplicating the function on the Steam Deck.
Lastly, some reporters are bemoaning the lack of hall effect sticks, but based on personal experience, I can vouch that a durable set of analog sticks like Hori makes won’t drift and will last longer than some sketchy hall effect sticks.
Hori is one of the older and most renowned game peripheral makers out there, so this is one to keep your eyes on, at least until the reviews come out. Hopefully Hori follows through with a global release in time.
