It seems the Steam Controller may not arrive until near the end of the year. The news comes thanks to PC Gamer & PAX.
QuoteA trusted hardware source with knowledge of Valve’s Steam Machines project told PC Gamer at PAX East that Valve’s Steam Controller will release in October or November of 2014.
Source
Not surprising that it has seen a small delay since they did change the design of it to remove the touch-screen it was going to have in the middle. Hardware takes time to perfect that's for sure, considering you have the manufacture side of it to deal with that you don't with software side like Valve's SteamOS.
It remains to be seen if Valve's Steam Machines will still come out this summer if their Steam Controller has been delayed. I would imagine releasing Steam Machines without the controller wouldn't be such an easy-sell for a lot of perspective buyers.
Still, SteamOS isn't even at a stable release yet, so we are still waiting on that to reach some sort of "1.0" release.
The longer it is put off, the more games they will have at release time, so it does give Valve extra time to talk to developers and publishers to get them on-board. After all we do have Tropico 5 coming, which has been delayed for the release of the Steam Machines.
So, hopefully it will give extra time to all those "early access" titles to get a bit more polished up, and for more to add in some form of controller support.
Although the Steam Controller can be used with games that don't support a controller as it emulates being a Mouse & Keyboard itself with downloadable sets of configurations for different games.
I will be doing a review of the controller whenever they do release it for purchase, as I am sure you are all wondering what it is like in Linux games.
You can see the controller demonstrated in the below video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=eeAjkbNq4xI
While that is the older design, the touch-pads remain the same. Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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9 comments
Nice tidbit at the end:
Our source added that the completion of Valve’s Steam Controller was the final piece that would precede the availability of most Steam Machines, which indicates that Steam Machines will also begin to release at the end of the year. The source also told PC Gamer that they expect “about 500” games to be natively playable on SteamOS by the end of this year, up from the current count of 382.
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This controller is such a mystery, I heard so many opinions about it, then again most of them came from people who haven't actually used it.
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I figured as much. Frankly, given Valve's track record with, well, everything, I am shocked that SteamOS itself is even available already. But hey, input devices are extremely important, and they want to get this right. I'm glad for that.
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I guess them tking this long is about delivering a rock solid experience by hammering out bugs long before actual devices and the controller is released. the worst thing for consumers that are Linux wizards would be a buggy and unpolished experience :/
I still want a conroller ASAP!
I still want a conroller ASAP!
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I hope they don't forget that in order for games to be playable from the couch developers also have to adapt their games to work with larger fonts.
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I hope they don't forget that in order for games to be playable from the couch developers also have to adapt their games to work with larger fonts.
You know, that's one thing I have a problem with too. It's all very well having high resolution graphics but I have a slight shortsightedness to my eyes so its not exactly great squinting at the screen to read peoples names, kills or something. Heres hoping valve will fix that, even with the absence of the touch screen which might have fixed it.
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Although I agree it needs to be solved somehow (and likely will rely on each individual game's devs implementing an option), I don't have as much of an issue with it if it's games like that where the reading is not exactly critical.. Try playing something like Crusader Kings 2 on a TV, though. I tried it. Once. :(I hope they don't forget that in order for games to be playable from the couch developers also have to adapt their games to work with larger fonts.You know, that's one thing I have a problem with too. It's all very well having high resolution graphics but I have a slight shortsightedness to my eyes so its not exactly great squinting at the screen to read peoples names, kills or something. Heres hoping valve will fix that, even with the absence of the touch screen which might have fixed it.
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lordfragger Apr 14, 2014
Let's hope the developers that are waiting for the steam boxes to release linux versions of their games are not going to let their games gather dust until the end of the year...
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oldrocker99 Apr 15, 2014
I've been playing games with keyboard and mouse for so long, and not playing games with a controller, that I have NO idea whether the Steam controller will be good for me to use or not.
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