Guest post by Valve has been listening to the feedback they’ve been getting, including the complaints people have had about the lack of a proper digital, 4-way pad, and now they are set to replace the touchscreen on the controller with a set of 8 individual buttons. (source: Gamespot).
In other news, Valve’s Anna Sweet tried to alleviate the concerns various parties have expressed and confirmed that their plan is to bring music, TV and movies on the platform in a streaming form, making it suitable for more than just gaming.
The “Steam Dev Days” developer conference is going on.
Day one highlights: http://steamdb.info/blog/42/
Day 2 coverage: http://steamdb.info/blog/
Talks: http://www.steamdevdays.com/?p=sessions
Although no press is allowed and only developers and publishers are attending, many devs are tweeting the event. The reception from developers seems to be very positive. Especially since every attendee was given a free controller prototype and steam machine from intel (the gigabyte brix). Seems they are doing a really good job on driving developer interest.
VR? They wasted time on VR at the talk?
Yes, VR is just around the corner and going to change everything, just like it was in the 80s.
I think they’ll be talking about this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jhgOqyZHBIU#t=30m53s
It’s this:
http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2014/01/valves-experimental-steamvr-b…
Awesome! That really is a company listening to users.
Why not the same sort of battery that is in your phone?
Because lithium-ion batteries aren’t standardized?
For me it really just needs upnp/dlna streaming from inside big picture mode.
In the overlay like the 360 would make it perfect.
Who actually listens to customer feedback and even responds anymore??? It’s so old-fashioned to let something as silly as customer complaints interfere with your Supreme Grand Vision(tm)!
[/sarcasm]
Yes, I’m looking at you, Microsoft and Canonical.
Is John D. Carmack in attendance? It will be interesting to know if he is present,
because the guy is doubtful of this new gaming platform.
Edited 2014-01-17 04:49 UTC
And we are doubtful that he is right.
He’s probably working on Id’s next hit game. You know, since they haven’t had one in like 15 years or more.
This got me interested: “their plan is to bring music, TV and movies on the platform in a streaming form”
Of course, consoles can already do that today but it’s good to see that they are targeting media as well.
The only thing that would keep me from buying a steam box would be the price. They seem to be expensive, the simpler models (like alienware) doesn’t seem to have so good hardware (integrated graphics intel 4000).
A $500 dollar box with Kaveri would be a nice basis I think.
You would think a steambox would be a reasonable platform for a haswell with an iris pro hd5200 (or haswell gt3 or whatever) which is supposed to be a mobile only processor.
Edited 2014-01-17 19:20 UTC
Could be but I don’t trust Intel with graphics. Also if a steam box with Kaveri becomes really popular developers could use mantle and hsa optimizations. This could get it really close to ps4 and xbone performance.
Wouldn’t it be nice to have your controller be some sort of backbone that you could just connect anything onto?
If you want two analog joysticks, just put them where you want them like Legos.
You want a 4-way D pad on the left and a single stick on right, just put them on there.
Why hasn’t anybody created this yet?
Imagine you want to swap buttons A and B around… you don’t have to change any mapping or settings in the game itself, you just pick up button A and button B and physically switch their positions.
It could probably all be done wirelessly (because of the proximity everything would be within inches) and the came controller could just provide power to the buttons.
Cost and demand (or lack thereof). Not everything works well in a modular format.
I’m skeptical of this new controller as it is — granted I haven’t used one yet. However, now they’re adding 8 buttons to it?
So far everything I’ve seen regarding this new controller might sound ok in theory but seems like it would be crap in practice. I guess we’ll see.
Maybe wait before you have something to add?
Comments and opinions are welcome here. Did you not get the memo?
But if you only say: this might be good or bad maybe I can find out later
Wouldn’t you say this should have stayed in your head? Nobody got something of value from it because it had no content.
Edited 2014-01-17 21:46 UTC
How generous of you to decide for everyone whether or not they get any “value” out of a post on here. If my opinions are meaningless to you, why are you wasting your time replying? Pointless whining doesn’t usually get people very far.
There was a hope you would reflect on the comment before replying…
You’ve put the cart before the horse. You need to post something worthy of reflection first. However, lacking basic decency towards what others have to say, I’m not sure that would help you anyways.
Lovely they are listening but this is exactly why i don’t want to be an early adopter… I fear i will end up with a gen1 of a platform that will run away from me and leave me behind the curve unless i pony up. I think ill let the dust settle on the platform and hardware before making the jump.
Sooo…it’s exactly like every new product?
not really. If I buy an Xbox One or PS4 I know the controller will be a fixed thing. The hardware might get slimmer with new features, but the controller doesn’t change.
The controller really needs to be the one constant that unifies all SteamBoxes (and the OS ofc).