Valve Announces First Party Customizable Gamepad! Steam Controller Is Here!

Today is the final day in the series of announcements from Valve and this one is a doozy. They are officially announcing their own gamepad! Looks like my prediction from Wednesday was right! Get eyes on this baby!

The Steam Controller really looks like it is the proper next step in video game input. No waggle controls, heart beat sensors or facial recognition. Valve has taken the greatest gaming controller, the Mouse and Keyboard and condensed them into a controller. The Steam Controller will work with all games on the Steam library, even the old ones!

The first thing you will notice about this gamepad is the dual trackpads. Each trackpad is super high resolution like that of a mouse, is clickable and opens up categories of games that were once unable to be played with a traditional gamepad. From the Press Release:

Whole genres of games that were previously only playable with a keyboard and mouse are now accessible from the sofa. RTS games. Casual, cursor-driven games. Strategy games. 4x space exploration games. A huge variety of indie games. Simulation titles. And of course, Euro Truck Simulator 2.

The Steam Controller will also feature brand new Haptic feedback. Featuring “dual linear resonant actuators”, they are saying that they will be able to deliver the kind of resistance that is missing from modern controllers and even might be able to improve on the Mouse and Keyboard!

Next we have the Touchscreen. High resolution, back lit touch screen is also one giant button that is clickable. It can be used to bring up menus, rotary options (Think weapon wheels) and even run entire in-game functions. One great feature of the touchscreen is the game integration. You won’t be forced to separate your attention between two screens. When you tap the touch screen it will overlay what it is displaying on the main screen!

The best part? Is that this controller is totally open! Valve plans on releasing tools for consumers to edit the controller to their personal taste!

Personal thoughts? I didn’t really think I was going to be THIS excited for a controller, I was hoping for some #3 games (Hal-Life, Portal L4D). After reading over the entire release I honestly think Valve is making the proper next step in input. Being able to properly replicate the preciseness of a Mouse has been a goal of controller designers for YEARS. The best manufacturers were able to come up with were adapters that you plugged your mouse and keyboard in and up to your console, and even those were pretty sketchy. It’s hard to say how WELL they’ve done with this controller until we can get one in our hands, one which will be included in the hardware beta, but just from looking on their proof of concept I’d be surprised if this came out badly.

Feeling lost? Check out our Day 1 and Day 2 coverage of the year of Valve announcements!