The Steam controller was ahead of its time

8Bitdo controllers are pretty hit and miss, but this is a big hit for them. The Pro series (and maybe others) comes with a rechargeable battery but the slot also fits 2 AA batteries.

If only they could get their software more feature rich and consistent.

Trying to find replacement batteries for integrated batteries is a pain too, since might not be able to find an OEM replacement or battery from a reputable brand. So you end up having to go with whatever random no name battery that could be worse than the OEM battery and end up dying after less than a year.

My preference is rechargeable AA or AAA. And even better if the controller itself can recharge the battery like drone controllers.

Took me a long time but I settled on Xbox one controllers. I use rechargable batteries but can run the AAs if u want. AA batteries have longer shelf life if u let the controller sit long periods vs rechargeables always seem to discharge. Support in just about every game. Can be had reasonable price on sale now and then and lots of parts available for them. Id never buy a controller with a non replaceable battery!

I prefer 38650 batteries.

Fully agree. I tried to make the SC work and wrote off a lot of it as "I'm just not used to it", but it really is asking a lot. In its defence, it was a first run product. The fact that it's still ass usable and as weird is impressive enough to me. But it's better as a piece of gaming history than a good product. It was just a good try.

I also agree with the Steam deck controls being actually good. I want the SC2 that's just a steam deck without the screen or computer.

So I guess the opposite of the steam brick.

I'd gladly pay $100 to have a steam deck like control scheme for my desktop. Rechargeable batteries and a Linux first design would be awesome. I don't mind just using cables all the time, but I would like better wireless options for Linux gamepads (though to be fair, I haven't tried connecting a wireless controller to a Linux box in 5 years).

I bought it and really tried to use it, but the reality was just too clunky for primary use. It has no dpad, a single crappy convex analog stick, terribly placed ABXY buttons, horrible shoulder buttons, and just a bit too much input lag on the trackpads.

Hard truths.

Why did they feel the need to replace analog controls with these weird, inconsistently responsive, difficult to map touch controls when every other console platform had already demonstrated why that's a bad idea?

Was the SC innovative, bold and ahead of its time in many ways?

NO. It was kitsch and poorly engineered and obviously not play tested sufficiently before release. It was a hobbyist's attempt at reinventing the mousetrap that got shoved into a major distribution pipeline when Playstation and Nintendo and XBox had already demonstrated why you don't build controllers this way ten years earlier.

That's the key. If you're wanting to play something like Street Fighter VI, the Steam controller probably won't fly.

But because I wanted to play Dungeon Siege on my TV, it works far better than a traditional controller ever could.

For the Steam controller to work for you, you have to come in with the mentality of it replacing a keyboard-and-mouse.

It walked so the Steam Deck could run.

That last paragraph is on point. That's why I have two controllers at my desk, one regular and one Steam Controller! I love playing casual Civilization or XCOM on it and it's surprisingly great with some FromSoftware games, especially Sekiro (for no reason in particular, it just felt good and the touchpad worked without any issues).

Yea the only target audience for the Steam Controller seems to be people who want to play kbm games with a controller if they're playing on a TV or something. But I reckon most PC gamers who get a controller use it to play on their usual PC setup for games that play better on a controller, they'll just use kbm for their kbm games.

It didn't fail because of a lack of a dpad but because of lack of two joysticks, but I'm glad the controller exists because I came to absolutely love the dual touchpads. And I wouldn't trade the left touchpad a dpad, since I like using it for movement.

I wouldn't trade the right touchpad for a joystick either, since I like using it to do quick 180s, quick swap between 5-10 inputs to bypass reloading in games like Doom Eternal by setting a dpad modeshift on a click, and touch activate gyro all on one touchpad.

Will probably be the last controller of its kind but I'm glad at least one did get made, since otherwise I'd still just be using a xbox or playstation controller like I did before getting Steam Controller.

I agree that not including the D-Pad was a bad move, but if you play games that use the d-pad just for functions like map or switching of equipment, there was the option to use the trackpad like a weapon wheel where you could define i think 8 functions with OSD, and using one of the back buttons made that 16 functions you could define freely - you could replace the hotkeys of a game that used half the keyboard with this thing lol

Honestly, IMO the lack of D-pad was less of an issue than the lack of a second analog stick. The lack of a second stick made the controller almost impossible to use in any game that was designed with 2 sticks in mind. For example Nier Automata 9S hacking minigame was a horrible experience with the Steam controller.

Yeah, it seemed to be for a time when controller support on PC was shit.

If the Steam Controller was designed the way lot of people wanted it than it wouldn't have been a Steam Controller and just another Xbox or Playstation controller and added nothing new. Would have been more successful but in the end another generic twin joystick controller. So even if it didn't succeed it brought new things to the table like touch activated gyro and touch pads that could be considered for other controllers in the future.

It has a D-pad, though…

Yeah, but counter point.

It's got Steam branding.

Another win for the good guys.

Agreed on it being a bad replacement for controller games. I got one around the time one of the FROMSOFT games came out (I think it was Sekiro?) and I tried using for that and it was just not usable for something like that. I haven’t really tried it for anything else since then because I don’t really play games away from my PC, so I don’t have a need for a worse but acceptable way to play M+KB games.

agreed to all of the above. I also found the texture on the trackpads to be quite irritating after a while.

It actually has d-pad, it's just combined with one of the touch areas, you can press it like a button, and 4 zones behave like a d-pad. Granted, it's a bit inconvenient so if you need it often, it's not the best. But it's there.

Swappable Li-Ion cells like 18650s are even better. I find recharging AAs too slow

Lol omg no

I admire the cut of your jib.

Pretty sweet. Original back shell, and battery cover?

I assume you've been mass reported in whatever game you made this for

whole new buttons or just remap face button functions?

Prey was great in that department actually having a config that mapped mouse to the right touchpad instead of emulating a joystick like so many games did, and then had different action sets that automatically switched depending on if it was gameplay or you were in the menu. And showed proper icons like the touchpad click to reflect Steam Input mappings people set it to.

It was truly a piece of shit. Imagine trying to play a game with a cheap touchpad. Worst controller I’ve ever owned.

Which version? The daisy wheel or the dual thumb keyboard?

I kinda miss the older circular mode, it was hard to get used to, but it was really quick and precise

It's a brillant device, I often use it more than my PC.

It gives me the feeling that playing the Gameboy as a kid gave me. The switch would only make my hands cramp because the controls are only made for small hands.

If only it wasn't made for tiny hands.

It's weird how quickly Sony discovered the perfect layout and how little it's changed since.

Analogue triggers are the only really great addition since the original Dual Shock.

The gyro aim on the PS5 (well technically all the way back to the PS3, only not as good) are actually really nice too, but I can count the games that use it on one hand. I've no idea why devs are so adverse to using them.

The PS4/5 touch pad would be OK if it wasn't just used as a giant Select button, because for some reason the actual Select button is now "Share" which literally nobody ever asked for.

It has two trackpads, which can be used as an alternative to joysticks. It's actually kinda cool since it kind of works like a mouse with quick flicks and whatnot.

I have one somewhere. The right track pad can work like a joystick, but without the physicality and feedback it just was awkward and unpleasant. Using tracking as a mouse also felt off whenever you needed any sort of precision. Right track pad/dpad seemed to be impossible to click just right to press a direction without also activating the trackpad mappings sending both inputs at once or the wrong one. I could not really get use to it and forgot about it in a box somewhere.

Didn't hate it, just couldn't find a use that mouse and keyboard couldn't cover enough to get a feel for it.

For real it looks like complete garbage. Joysticks are good, not bad. I'll take a Playstation controller any day over this shit

If you are curious here is some of my gameplay video in games like Doom Eternal, Left 4 Dead 2, The Finals, etc.

Was the first controller that allowed me to completely drop aim assist for good and not feel slow against PC players and offer keyboard like functionality for input swapping.

Understand the Steam Controller came out 10 years ago and was meant to be used in the decade or two prior to that when "real PC games" didn't support gamepads. Contrast that with today where CRPGs and RTSes often have official bindings.

There are two ways to use a trackpad. The first is to swipe (like a laptop trackpad) and the second is press and hold. For the former, the delta between where your thumb is and where it was is used to translate to cursor movement. For the latter, think of it like an analog stick. The center of the trackpad is 0 and your input is the delta between 0 and the location of your thumb at this moment.

So press and hold lets it emulate an analog stick and swiping is very useful for moving a cursor on the screen. And there are/were plenty of ways to switch between the modes on the fly.

The steam deck controller addresses all of these issues. I was literally an anti-controller (wasd gang) zealot and the steam deck controller converted me because I can literally play city skylines in bed now..

Same here. The thing was neat and innovative, but missing the dpad and right stick really brought it down significantly imo. The steam deck got it right - the trackpads are incredibly useful when used as a supplementary feature, but rarely as a full replacement for traditional inputs. Plus the form factor. Dear god the thing was MASSIVE. Incredibly uncomfortable to use and such an awkward shape.

Here's hoping the leaks come to fruition, because a 2.0 version based on the Deck would be 10/10.

I'm glad at least someone else here had that feeling. I ended up not liking mine at all and sending it back. I couldn't get used to the pads at all even though I wanted to like it a lot, maybe it's just my hands. I use my steam deck all the time, first an led and now an oled, and I can count the times I've used the trackpads on it effectively on one hand.

Yes, that's the other thing: the trackpad D-pad is not as good as a button D-pad.

The em dash? I always use it—love it—you’ll have to take it from cold, dead hands.

Yeah sure, emdashes and curly quotation marks were designed and put into Unicode specially for AI. Take some book or newspaper and look at what characters it uses

I bought three of them when they went on sale for $5

I remember the couple of times you could pick up a controller and steam link for free. And my dumbass still didn't do it :(

That’s more of a killer feature for Linux in general.

And I can’t undersell how big of a deal that is. When Windows 10 dies, I’m switching my desktop to Linux simply because Proton makes me want to use Linux.

Yup, the touchpads are cool, but I would've bought a Steam Deck without them, but I wouldn't if Proton didn't exist. I was on Linux already when the Steam Deck came out, so I was already familiar with Proton.

Yeah, I couldn't get on with it at all. Most games are designed for a right analogue stick, and not having one just kills it.

Yeah, the left trackpad sucks. I think they could also fit another joystick if they made the right trackpad a little smaller.

Left trackpad is also a d-pad though

I also want six face buttons for fighting games. Somebody, please release a controller like this already. I haven't seen one since the Sega Saturn.

I really love mine and necer realised how "hated" it was. For me the biggest downside is that the level of customisation is almost overwhelming. Which is a good problem to have, honestly, but it led me to sometimes use the shitty xbox controller instead of fumbling with options.

Is there some meta to using the touch pads? I never use them on my deck due to the lack of being able to have continous motion like a joystick. If I've just been using them wrong I'd love to try them out in the way that makes people rave about them

Actually, those rear buttons are unique. They are not the same triggers and buttons. They are highly useful in FPS games for functions like crouch.

I was initially intrigued by having buttons on the bottom of the controller, where your fingers naturally would be thus freeing your thumbs to stay on the pad/sticks. And imagine my frustration to realize those rear buttons are just extensions of triggers already on top.

My set up approach to having both my thumbs stay on the pads a majority of the time has been to set up a dpad modeshift with an inverted outer ring bind so clicking up, down, left, right, center output different inputs. And depending on the game I'd set up a chord so holding the left grip and clicking the right pad would output a different set of 5 inputs. And my right grip is set to jump so with the left grip chord function for 5 additional inputs on a right pad click if needed for a total of 10 that's been my way of doing that.

So for like Doom Eternal I swap between weapons every shot to bypass reloading through the right touchpad. I like that approach better than using stuff like weapon wheels, which in some games actually slows down the actual gameplay and interrupts the flow.

I had a setup for fromsoft games that activated the gyro when I touched the track pad. So I could swipe the pad for fast camera turns and use the gyro for fine aim. My steam controllers battery terminals were both damaged by cell bursts though. I miss the camera agility now.

How did you use the touchpad. My approach has been to adjust the sensitivity of the touchpad until an edge to edge swipe does a 180, and for gyro having a 90 degree rotation of the controller do 675 degree rotation in game for first person and 450 degrees for third person. Made it a consistent aim experience no matter what game I played as long as the mouse input in the game was good and didn't do things like emulate a joystick causing negative acceleration.

And for the right touchpad I set a dpad modeshift with an inverted outer ring bind so clicking up, down, left, right, center output different inputs so I didn't have to reach down to the facebuttons as often. And depending on the game I'd set up a chord so holding the left grip and clicking would output a different set of 5 inputs.

And I just saved the template so I didn't need to set it up all the time.

Liked it for Doom Eternal, since I could activate gyro, swipe the camera to quickly turn, and click to swap between weapons every shot to bypass reloading all on the right touchpad.

And pvp games like The Finals clicking the right pad to switch through gadgets and using the touchpad to quickly turn and activate gyro, and not feeling like my inputs were too slow versus mouse users. And not having to bother with aim assist.