Valve Announces Steam Controller
“A different kind of gamepad.” — Valve has announced Steam Controller, “a different kind of gamepad.” — The controller features two circular trackpads. As explained by Valve, “Driven by the player's thumbs, each one has a high-resolution trackpad as its base.
Context & Ripple Effects
Valve had already moved Steam’s television-facing interface out of beta with Big Picture mode in 2012. Its September 2013 SteamOS and Steam Machines announcements turned that interface into a broader living-room hardware initiative.
The controller supplies the missing input layer for that initiative. Its twin high-resolution trackpads signal that Valve is not merely packaging a conventional gamepad alongside Steam Machines, but proposing a control method tailored to its own platform.
First-order effects
- Valve’s SteamOS and Steam Machines effort gains a first-party controller, giving the company a more complete hardware-and-software proposition for the living room.
Second-order effects
- The initiative’s success becomes more dependent on Valve coordinating the Steam interface, Linux-based operating system, Steam Machine hardware and an unfamiliar controller design, rather than relying on Big Picture mode alone.
Third-order effects
- If Valve can make its controller a credible part of the Steam experience, Steam shifts further from a software storefront toward an integrated platform that controls more of the living-room gaming stack.
The trend: PC game distribution platforms are extending into proprietary hardware and interfaces to control more of the living-room experience.