Valve’s Steam Machine Controller Announced

Valve has finished its three major announcements for the week and what started with SteamOS and then led to the Steam Machine is now ending with the Steam controller.

As with the Steam Machine, Valve’s new haptic controller will be sent out to 300 beta testers before its release in 2014. Even though the controller will provide haptic feedback (like current console controllers do), Valve is trying to reinvent the way console gamers use controllers.

The Stream controller has no thumbsticks and instead opts for a dual trackpad layout which Valve hopes will mimics the feel of using a keyboard and mouse to interact with video games. Whether or not the trackpads are anything like a keyboard and mouse has yet to be seen, but it will surely be one of the things that beta testers provide feedback on.

Valve stated the following on its website:

We realized early on that our goals required a new kind of input technology — one that could bridge the gap from the desk to the living room without compromises. So we spent a year experimenting with new approaches to input,

Valve is all about performance with the Stream controller and stated that it operates at a higher bandwidth than any other consumer product. So, in theory, the Stream controller should outdo the Xbox One and PS4 controllers in terms of specs.

Unlike the way that other companies (Microsoft and Sony) go about things, Valve is not locking down its controller, SteamOS, or the Steam Machine at all. Instead, it is allowing users to hack the systems as much as they want, which is something that other mainstream console companies have never done.

Beta testers will be getting their hands on the Steam Machine and Steam controller shortly, but neither will be released to the public until sometime in 2014.