So who’s paying for this hit piece?
Its a normal article with a click bait title. The review seemed to lean on the positive.
I like it. But if it can’t work as a standard gamepad without Steam then it’s not worth it for me.
I don’t need the fancy features, but standard compatibility like an xbox controller (without third party tools).
Wait, what? It doesn’t work with non-steam games?
It works with non-steam games and the trackpad might even work without steam on Linux, but it will most certainly not work on Windows without Steam and if you want to customize your buttons with steam input, you need to launch the game through steam, which is able to launch none-steam binaries.
Grand total it has 4 extra buttons, 2 capacitive strips, 2 touchpads, gyro, and the fancy magnetic joysticks. $100 did not surprise me at all.
Of course, if you don’t care about any of those features, it isn’t the best deal, in the same way that a luxury sports car makes for a shit commuter vehicle. Not that the steam controller is “luxury” but like, if you don’t want the extra features then the higher price probably isn’t worth it. That doesn’t make it overpriced, it means you aren’t the target audience.
Full disclosure. I’m that target audience. I’m already mentally mapping extra buttons to the left touchpad and thinking about setting the back buttons to my armored core’s shoulder weapons.
It was a breath of fresh air to see Valve employees on interviews clearly stating “it does and has all these things, if you don’t want or need them, don’t buy it.” Not in the usual corporate entitlement way, but actually a pro consumer rights POV. They are not gonna pressure everyone and their grandmother to buy one, they made a premium tool for their steam machine and are aware of it.
the magnetic sticks are worth the extra cost so there will be no stick drift
Every outlet that you are seeing run a headline about the Steam Controller being in someway ‘controversial’ or ‘has a problem’ or ‘may be divisive’ …
I contend that this is an anti-marketing campaign, being run by basically, potentially, the entire AAA gaming industry that isn’t Valve.
Nearly every major AAA game company is currently imploding right now.
Except Valve.
Because Valve is privately held and owned, it doesn’t have a board of investors to answer to, to constantly juice next quarter profits for.
It doesn’t have a gaggle of people who sit on multiple corporate boards simultaneously, who sit on the boards of industry lobbying groups, who sit on the boards of astroturfed ‘consumer rights’ groups.
These people all know each other, or in some cases literally are the same people.
I of course cannot prove this conclusively, but just… look around.
This is nuts, the number of media outlets going with a non positive angle, in the headline… of a product launch.
Also consider that many of Valve’s direct competition has extensive, direct ties to the AI bubble insano-mania, both hardware and software companies.
… Its not normal to have so many different outlets have such a standardized general framing of … a video game controller launch.
This is what a retired ex corpo ex MSFT employee such as myself would describe as sus.
You know, I don‘t think negative reception with the press means there is a smear campaign going on by default. Maybe they simply chose that headline because drama sells.
But it is interesting if you compare it to their headlines about the Switch 2 a year ago. A lot of sugar coating like „feature packed“ with a vague „but…“ at the end to address Nintendo‘s widely unpopular price policy. That‘s the narrative many tech journalists chose to go with prior to the launch at the time.
For one reason or another a lot of them seem biased to me.
Yeah, but summarizing my reasoning as to why I think it is a smear campaign down to ‘by default’… is to completely ignore all of my reasoning, which is frankly rude, and you strawmanning me.
… and then you point out that a comparable recent story/event… actually did have a substantial, already existing controvery… and was generally covered with more ‘positive sentiment’ words in the headlines, but yes did acknowledge the controversy.
… As opposed to essentially inventing it, as they’ve done with the Deck.
Yes, drama sells, if it bleeds it leads, but for some reason, the degree to which headline sentiment matches vs doesn’t match the actual story and pre-existing actual buzz around it, well that varies.
I like your style
Here’s what it sounds like when I use a computer. =P
No. Valve spends a shit load on marketing and almost none of the articles over the past few days have been anywhere near negative.
100$ for a controller is fucking stupid. If valve wasn’t paying everyone off, they would be getting ripped a new one.
Big claims stated as fact that you pulled out of your ass
Sony and Microsoft both sell “elite” controllers for much more than that
The Sony one is legit terrible too.
The switch 2 joycons are the same price, and the Xbox elite controller is more for less features.
Ya and no one thinks those are fairly priced. Xbox and Nintendo isn’t the bar.
The fact is that the Steam controller is way more feature rich than other controllers from major brands in the same price point. The price tag actually makes sense vs what Nintendo and Microsoft charge for inferior hardware.
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Would you pay the same price for a Microsoft controller if it had little pads?
If it had all the other little things like TMR sticks, repair-friendly construction, really deep configuration, and other hardware in the family having a track record of good software support, unironically yes. As much as I hate Microsoft, their accessibility controller was a big win.
Also, it’s not simping to genuinely like a company’s products after using a lot of them.
Especially if it lasts like the first. I have 4x dead Xbox one controllers, and a working steam controller that’s several years older than all of them.
Exactly this, the fact that Valve makes the controller is mostly irrelevant to me (the only difference is that I trust Valve to deliver on their promises, other manufacturers I might wait a few months for reviews, and especially to see it it’s compatible with Linux and SteamInput). But if Microsoft or Sony, or 8BitDo had released a controller with these features for €99 I would have brought it too.
Such a well articulated and certainly not unhinged response /s
Maybe you should avoid gaming communities if discussions about gaming hardware triggers you this hard.
Chief, I think you need a mental health break from the internet.
Well since you think this should be cheaper why don’t you go and make your own Steam controller for cheaper and then sell it and rake in all of these absurd profits you keep jerking off about?
Because I’ll be first in line buying that controller from you for $50 or whatever you think it’s “actually worth”.
Until then I’m sorry but you’re blowing smoke up your own ass with your own ignorance.
It’s as overpriced
WTF you basing this on?
What would you compare it to then?
Or do you have the details of the actual costs to manufacture and know the margins Valves has on this hardware?
No of course you don’t, because you are talking out your ass…
Is this thing worth 5 third party controllers?
If you’re gaming on $20 controllers no wonder you don’t see the appeal here, it’s like someone saying “is an Nvidia 5080 really worth 5 Nvidia 3050s?”, completely different audiences.
Good controllers don’t sell cheaper than half the price of a steam controller, so you wouldn’t even be able to buy 2 controllers for the price of this. And there are plenty of controllers a lot more expensive than this that offer no benefits. Even the ones that cost half are, IMO, less than half as feature-rich, so yeah, definitely worth 2 Sony/Xbox/8BitDo controllers.
Are three of these worth a steam deck?
No, because the Steam Deck doesn’t cost 300, only the model they were burning stock did for a little while (that’s like saying the OG steam controller used to cost $5), and that model is no longer being made, so the question is are 6 of this worth a steam deck? But that is also kinda moot since it’s out of stock and might increase in price because of the ram shortage.
I’m not getting paid by Valve, in fact I will be giving them money for this controller as soon as possible. If you only play controller games then yeah, €99 for a controller with just 2 extra buttons and capacitive gyro might be too much (although, the capacitive gyro and extra buttons alone justify the price for me). But no other controller can be used to play mouse games comfortably. The trackpads might not be for you, but to claim they’re not worth it is naive at best, as they’re the ONLY good solution for this problem and no one else is doing them to be able to say “this other controller does the same and is cheaper”.
prices that have raised eyebrows among some gamers.
WTF?
Only those that know nothing about the features and tech internal.
price is a steal.
With prices of hardware in general world-wide (non-ram related) we’re lucky this isn’t $120US or $150US
Switch 2 Joycon’s are the same price for fuck sakes…
Xbox Elite Wireless Controller is more expensive, and can’t do the things this controller can do.
Last year my wife picked up a pair of regular Xbox pads for us to use when playing couch co-ops over Sunshine/Moonlight. When the pricing for the new Steam controller was announced, she went back and had a look at what she paid. They’ve gone up in price and are currently £80.
Each.
For an extra £5 you get haptics, touch pads, FAR better stick technology, and all in a package that’s as repairable as it can be.
Yeah, £85 is a fucking bargain at this point.
Right? Just compare it to the glued mess that is the $90 Switch 2 controller or to a $200 DualSense pro (or whatever name Sony’s premium controller goes by).
Say what you will but Valve built the Steam Controller to last. I expect the first weeks to be a little bumpy on the software side (as is always the case with controllers) but it will quickly become very future rich. Likely more so than any other controller. And Valve is doing all that with a focus on Linux.
I am not one to easily praise US tech companies and Valve is far from perfect but the Steam Deck has a very good track record and this controller seems like it meets those standards as well.
It‘s a very good deal if repairability, full Linux support and feature richness are what you‘re looking for.
Also Xbox controllers have garbage ass build quality. Valve seems to make pretty solid hardware. The only one I see as comparable is the PS5 dualsense controller, but it’s still missing some things like the extra buttons. It has a touchpad, but just one, and it’s not optimally placed, imho.
I have serious stick drift on Dualsense controllers after using them on and off for just a year. 3 controllers, all with the same issue.
I like the Dualsense a lot at its best, but I go through roughly a controller per year probably. One of them something with the rumble loosened. Not noticeable in some games, but when I was playing Returnal it sounded like a jackhammer. Another the sticks got…sticky in a way that was really distracting. Stick drift on another, and my current one the right arrow stopped working. I had to re-map it to the left stick click to play Infinite Wealth, and other games like Elden Ring just won’t work with it.
Agreed though, when they work they’re comfortable, responsive, intuitive. At their best they’re the best controller I’ve used.
But for $80+ these days they should have hall effect sticks and mechanical switches. I’ve started buying https://www.gulikit.com/ controllers, which have both and are much cheaper, but not as comfy or responsive.
Ackshully, the PS5 touchpad has two sides that can be individually configured. But you’re right that it’s not optimally placed.
The Index conttollers were a bit of a joke, in terms of both build quality and ergonomics. I had like 3 RMAs.
Build quality is debatable, but I thought the ergonomics were great. What didn’t you like about them?
Never had a problem with mine and I have smacked them into solid objects pretty hard a few times.
Anecdotal RMAs aside, I think the ergonomics are fantastic and they blew every other VR controller I’ve tried out of the water.
we’re lucky this isn’t $120US
£85 GBP is pretty much $120 USD (it’s $114).
And that’s very much what the yanks will pay for it. American prices are always before taxes.
Polish prise is 420 pln wchich is also 115$
Not everyone is in us. 99 euro no matter how reasonable prices a lot of Germans out
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Yeah, but is it really that much more expensive than other controllers? PS5 Dual Sense is 79€. Xbox Series X/S is 65€ with the Elite 2 at 200€. Considering the additional features of the Steam controller and current development of hardware prices, the pricing seems reasonable.
Edit: I should add, those are recommended retail prices (UVP), and the actual prices from individual stores can be lower.
Prices can’t be compared directly, because in Germany we have the taxes in the price included already. And the taxes in the US vary I think. So the difference is less than it looks like by just converting with current exchange rates.
Both of the other controllers you listed are already too expensive for what they are. That doesn’t really justify the price of the Steam controller imo. This isn’t a “pro” controller either. This is the only one Valve offers. Sure it has a lot of good tech and features, but its all stuff they have been putting on the deck for years. I would hardly call the price a steal. I feel like a fair price for a controller like this would have been about $70-80. Not to mention, Valve isn’t trying to only sell this to tech enthusiasts. They want this to be a widespread product. $100 for a controller is too steep for an average consumer.
Sorry dude, I’m not paying $100 USD for a controller. The last controller I bought cost me ~$30 USD (GameSir T4 Kaleid) and has everything I need, including hall effect sticks. The steam controller having cool tech like touchpads and a gyro and whatever else is cool I guess, but I don’t need or want that. No amount of stuff like that is gonna make me spend that much on a controller.
So yes, the steam controller price raised my eyebrows, in the same way that basically all first-party controllers do. They’re all crazily overpriced imo.
I was already considering spending 105€ on a flydigi vader 5 pro with every accessory included. The steam controller is like a sidegrade with features I already enjoy from my steam deck (plus some more) and I may eventually get both (or a vader 6 pro when that comes out) but so far I’m really excited about it. For desktop use I assume it’s done through the buried-in-the-settings desktop controller layout. I’ve heard you can hold a button to switch to pure gamepad mode. Even if that doesn’t work, I don’t particularly mind adding heroic games to steam or something like that.
I hate round d-pads so much.
I still don’t get the controversy.
Are you an avid Touchpad user on the Deck or on the OG Steam Controller? Buy this.
Do you just want a controller for your PC? Buy an Xbox, PS or Third party.People think they have to buy it for some reason, they just can’t fathom not being the target audience.
Yes this exactly haha it’s crazy.
It’s the rear buttons,
And the insane customization and re-mapping of buttons/functions/gyro/etc that steam allows you to create that sells me on these controllers.
The only controversial part is that it only works on steam. Which is pretty wild imo. Why would you need more that just the controller’s driver for it to work?
I thought that turned out not to be true? That by default it behaved like a joystick and mouse like the original steam controller?
It’s wild because it isn’t true
Like I said to another person, there are multiple reviews that mention this. Do you have any source that proves otherwise?
I can‘t speak about software updates just yet because I have only seen them being applied via Steam but the controller works out of the box. I‘m assuming you can update it by downloading a file too, though. That would put it far above some competitors because guess what? A lot of them let you install some shitty software for that. At least Steam is already installed on my machine. I run Linux after all and ironically Steam is already helping me setting up controllers from other manufacturers.
Do you have any source for this? Multiple reviewers (e.g. gamersnexus) have said that if you don’t launche the game through steam, the controller won’t work.
I have the og steam controller but I’m not going to buy this one.
If you have a working controller, why would you buy any controller?
I have a few controllers but I do need another wireless one for playing coop games on the TV.
I’m more than willing to pay a premium for a PC controller that isn’t going to have stick drift and will work a few years down the line. God knows how many xbox controllers I’ve gone through.
I trust Valve, I’ve used their product and played their games for decades and they’ve never let me down. they’ve made gaming on linux accessible and now extremely easy to set up and get going. $100 for a controller I will pay for.
I’m definitely pushing for this to last a long time. The battery is the only thing that concerns me a little. I use rechargeable Eneloops with the original controller, and there’s no danger of the AA battery form factor disappearing anytime soon. I’ll likely grab a spare battery for the new one eventually just to keep in reserve.
GamersNexus did a review of it and tested the battery life. They had to cut the test short after 36 straight hours. Plus they’re partnering with IFixIt again for replacement parts
I watched both of his videos already. When I said I want this controller to last a while, I mean literal decades. I know iFixit will have replacement parts, but there’s still going to be a point where even they will stop carrying them.
I mean at that point you would probably solder a phone battery into it or something like we did with the PSP when replacement batteries got terrible.
Yeah, I’m gonna be on the look out for people doing this. Gamers Nexus showed the battery voltage as 3.85V. I was worried at the time that this voltage isn’t too common, but it seems that fear is unfounded. Never had a PSP, so that’s cool to know.
The only thing stopping me from buying the new Steam Controller is all of the original Steam Controllers I have that are all still working fine.
If you’re using them on a docked Steam Deck, the new controller has a dedicated “…” menu button, so you don’t have to get off the couch whenever you need to mess with DeckyLoader
But that D-PAD,
Serious talk, this new steam controller only exists because the old one didn’t have a D-Pad, sure, the new touch pads are nicer, but really we are all upgrading our old steam controllers to this one for the d-pad.
The left touchpad acts as a D pad on the original, you can just use touch or press till it clicks. Still might be nice to have a better one though.
I’m so pissed (at myself), I thought this was going to be delayed indefinitely like the steam machine so I broke down and bought an xbox elite controller a month ago. That stupid controller was 250 bucks after tax and it doesn’t have half the features the steam controller does and its only 90 dollars.
I really should have been more patient.
Damn, you really should have. The controller isn’t affected by the RAMpocalypse, so people have been suspecting this would end up being released first since the delay was announced. I’m waiting for the Frame most of all, so I’ll take your comment as a reminder to not break down and buy another headset early.
Stay strong
I have two Elite 2s, one for my wife and I, was hoping they’d finally last us a long while, nope, within a year both have stick drift and faulty bumpers.
My coworker is on his 10th or 11th Elite controller.
He bought one and when it developed stick drift in 6 months he went to try to do a warranty and it’d supposedly take a month or so and just be a repair. He ended up repairing it himself with new sticks, which also developed stick drift in 6 months. Oh and the back buttons developed double clicks.
He ended up just going to a store(target, best buy, whatever) and bought a new one and then put his old one in the box and returned it.
Does it every 6 months when the controller starts acting up. So been doing this for years. Target doesn’t care, best buy doesn’t care.
Funnily enough I told him about the Steam Controller and he said why buy that when there’s the Elite controller or the PS pro controller…I’m like you’re on your 10th one? Why would I buy something that has that many issues?
Oh good, I have that to look forward too.
Yeah, maybe you’ll be lucky lol.
I was very angry considering how expensive the controllers were, I’ve become increasingly disillusioned with Microsoft/Google/Etc products as they charge a premium price yet theyre often much worse then competitors at a similar price.
I do tend to treat things with extreme care and as a result I still have functional xbox 360 controllers with almost no stick drift. So yeah I may get lucky but I still wish I had been patient.
Nice! I wish I had preserved my special ODST controller from the 360 days.
250 USD ? In the US, like on Amazon or Best Buy, is that the normal price for an Elite + Tax?
Holy shit. Now I understand why people are defending the SC2 pricing.
Yes, there are several premium controllers in the $200 range. People unhappy with the price are thinking of the SC as an expensive base model controller when feature-wise it’s more like an inexpensive premium one.
I got a gamesir controller which retails for nearly the same price, but I got it at half price so I’m somewhat OK. I would have been devastated if I had to shell out full price a week before steam controller got on my radar.
My condolences, and may your unfortunate purchase serve it’s purpose for long enough to be worth its price and more.
Its like a few dollars more than other controllers with double the features and quality. What are people complaining about? 85 for something that’ll last years and give you 1000s of hours of enjoyment is a no brainer
A standard, official Xbox controller is $85 CAD. This thing is $150. That’s almost double. I agree, the features sound great (especially having used the original steam controller, I know how good their touchpads are), but still… Almost double.
Gamers divided on a piece of hardware? No shit
It‘s almost as if it‘s not for everyone. Just like a $85 mouse or keyboard aren‘t. If you‘re still happily rocking your 10+ year old $20 third party controller alongside your $5 mouse then by all means skip this hardware release, folks.
$100 for a controller that will only work through Steam is way too much for me, but I can see how it would be worth it for anyone who exclusively plays games through Steam and wants to play games designed for a mouse on a controller.
It’ll work outside Steam using whatever controls you have set up for its desktop profile, which can be the stock Xbox layout, and I plan to play a few games that way, but yes, the controller does require Steam Input to shine.
You still have to have Steam installed and running for the controller to function. You cannot plug it into a fresh installed OS and have it works out of the box, unlike even the cheapest of Chinesium knock off controllers.
Ah, I guess people are working off different definitions of “running outside Steam.” After looking into it, the lack of DirectInput support is indeed not great. It doesn’t affect my use cases, and the first Steam Controller got open source drivers pretty early, so I doubt it’ll actually be a blocker soon after release, but I’ll refrain from commenting on it until more happens.
It’s still pretty shitty support from a $100 hw device.
Oh, does it? My understanding was that if you wanted to play, say, games through Gamepass on it, it wouldn’t work since you can’t run those through Steam. I’d be glad for everyone if it does work, though!
I think you could run those through steam, by adding them as a non steam game. Then the full steam input feature set is available
Not quite what you were saying though, I definitely want to see confirmation that this bad-boy will work like a normal controller when plugged into a system that doesn’t have or support steam
You don’t have to add them as non-Steam games. You just have to make sure your desktop profile is set up to match how you want those games to be played. You can save templates and swap them out for a bit easier flexibility.
I have my original Steam Controller set up to swap between a mouse and keyboard mode and an Xbox layout and that works for the majority of things I want to do outside of Steam with it, no fiddling with the “add a non-Steam game” stuff.
If you don’t need trackpads or touch sensitive sticks, there are better options out there. If you do need those things and want input parity with Steam Deck, it’s going to be a great experience.
There will also certainly be community developed drivers in a few months so you can use it outside of Steam.
“If you don’t need trackpads or touch sensitive sticks, there are better options out there.”
Not challenging this, more a market research, what would be those alternatives?
I play most my games via Steam Linux PC. What would be a better plug and play option to the new Steam Controller?
There will also certainly be community developed drivers in a few months so you can use it outside of Steam.
Very likely. Kind of odd that they don’t come with this functionality by default, since even PS5 controllers worked with PC at launch.
I love Steam hardware, but yes, it’s close to unacceptable that it doesn’t default to like xinput or whatever.
Once it works natively on general Linux distros I’m buying it.
Do you mean without steam input? My understanding is that the internals default to sending mouse & keyboard inputs which get translated to controller output in software. I’m sure someone will write an open source driver to get it working without Steam at some point, but if you don’t mind running games through Steam then it’s already working.
If its like the Steam Deck (which it is), this is true, I’ve installed non Steam OSs on my Deck to fuck around and find out, there is some kind of default mapping, the track pad is a mouse, etc…
Its probably the same or close to the default hardware mapping as the default SteamInput mode for a Deck, in Desktop mode, would be my guess, basically sans virtual keyboard as Steam does its own virtual keyboard via Steam/SteamInput.
Obviously works much better and fully featured with the SteamInput system, but it isn’t a total brick if you don’t have Steam.
Which yeah, should mean that it would be possible to write a fully opensource kind of controller manager/bus type thing for it.
It already works on any linux distro you can install Steam on.
My OG Steam controller is still kicking.
I use it in desktop mode more than anything these days
