On the first day of Valve’s #SteamDevDays event, Steam revealed to developers the new design of the Steam Machines controller.
The new design eschews the touchpad in the middle, although it still retains the two circular haptic feedback touchpads on each side. Below each of these haptic touchpads, moving closer inward, are a more conventional set of two buttons arranged in a cross design. Valve has confirmed in the same presentation that they are now using a Dpad and ABXY buttons for backwards compatibility.
Regarding the change of heart, Valve’s wording has definitely changed. They still feel that biometrics are important, but the hands are not the best place to capture them. Moving along, the controllers will eventually have gyroscopes, but as of now, the controller’s API is available in the Steamworks SDK. The API is capable of supporting 16 controllers at once.
Remember VR support? Valve affirms that they have kept VR in mind making this controller. Lastly, Valve explains they are still in the middle of processing beta feedback, so more changes are set to come to the controller. At the end of Day One, the developers were given a Gigabyte Steam Machine, with their own Steam Controller, although this is the 1st iteration.
First day of #SteamDevDays was awesome!! Valve gave all the attendees Steam Controllers and Steam Machines! pic.twitter.com/VfrfDZZ3K6
— Kyle Holdwick (@kyleholdwick) January 16, 2014
As it is now, the Steam Machines controller resembles the Dualshock at the surface, although its layout is more similar to the Wii U GamePad and Pro controllers. Of course, we should make these comparisons at face value and not go beyond that since Valve is likely to make even more radical changes to the controller.
I’m almost sorry to see Valve take back their stand on physical buttons. I think we would have gotten some truly innovative experiences from those original plans. Of course, backwards compatibility is a big enough sticking point that they had to do this. I’m sure Valve is going to change things up irregardless.
