It seems that Valve has gotten bold after the success of the Steam Deck.
As reported by The Verge, the company is planning to launch two new controllers. Brad Lynch has revealed that both are already in mass production.
The first controller is something of a Steam Controller 2, codenamed Ibex. Lynch described the controller on Twitter like this:
“It has symmetrical sticks
Honestly its not far off from Steam Deck input has
I never cared to say much about SC2, because even with leaks, anyone with common sense would come to the same conclusions.”
Valve fans who remember the original Steam Controller will remember the bold experiment Valve made in replacing the standard analog sticks with dual trackpads. Does trackpads were mapped in such a way that you could use them like analog sticks, but they could also be customized to replicate certain inputs that are possible on mouse and keyboard.
For example, one could move their thumb across one of the trackpads as if they were scrolling with a mouse. They could also bring up a contextual keyboard. These were all intended to make it possible to play games designed for mouse and keyboard with the controller, but results were mixed at best.
On the Steam Deck, Valve brought back the analog sticks. But they also added two square trackpads at the bottom of the analog sticks, to give the players more flexibility. Valve cannily got their community involved to make their own inputs for Steam games, so that they and developers didn’t have to put that effort in themselves.
Notably, the controller layout on the Steam Deck has the d-pads and the face buttons on the far ends of the console, with the analog sticks sitting next to them inside the console, and the trackpads below the analog sticks. This is an ideal setup for the ergonomics of a wide device like the Deck, but we don’t know if it will work as well on the standardized shape of a conventional game controller. Maybe this Steam Controller 2 will be shaped like two Joy-Cons connected to a Joy-Con holder, but larger? We’ll see how they work it out.
The other controller Lynch was talking about is codenamed Roy, the input devices for their next upcoming VR device, the Deckard. Here’s what Lynch had to say about it:
“Valve Roy controller(s) have at least: DPAD, Bumpers, Grip Buttons, Triggers, ABXY, system button, and some sort of strap
I am confident in this info based on datamining AND sources who wished not to be named
There is also an unreleased OpenXR extension for these controllers.”
OpenXR is an open-source standard, so fans or other entities can get the Roy working on other VR devices. So, fans could theoretically put the work in to make them work on other platforms, but we wouldn’t hold our breath on this replacing your Xbox Elite controller.
Valve is somewhat stuck with their Steam Deck, because they haven’t seen that technological leap that would justify a new generation of the Steam Deck 2, from AMD or other potential SOC manufacturers. So now is a good time for them to explore other hardware ventures, and they have certainly earned enough trust to get fans buying their controllers. Hopefully, they have gotten enough done with their global distribution network so that consumers can easily get these controllers at launch.
