The Verge managed to speak to a couple of developers at Valve on the Steam Deck, and while most of it was already known and largely covered here on GOL already (go through our Steam Deck tag) there's a couple of interesting bits to pick out. ICYMI: see my end of year Steam Deck article.
It's quite a nice read overall and a very good article from Sean Hollister, especially for people not constantly reading up on everything Steam Deck.
One of the first points is that Valve said the Steam Deck may never be "Stable" in the way that traditional consoles are, since Valve are "always going to be pushing updates as long as there’s people playing". So expect them to keep on pushing out new features and new fixes for bugs as they come in. Any regular Steam user will know: Valve like to keep on iterating on things constantly, and their Beta branch for the Steam client likes to break things quite often. However, they're moving to monthly stable Steam Deck updates now.
While it's not out yet, Valve are still working towards a SteamOS 3 release for everyone, and Valve are "excited to see other manufacturers making their own handheld PC gaming devices, we’re excited to see people make their own SteamOS machines which could include small PCs that they put next to their TV".
A Steam Controller 2 is something I've been asking for years, I even wrote a bit about the original in 2019 about how much I loved it, and Valve want to see a second happen too, they said "we want to make it happen" but naturally they're heavily focused on the Deck directly right now.
Another feature Valve are working on is a built-in audio mixer for the Gaming Mode UI, so you can easily adjust levels between different applications, games and friends chat to make it all easier. No doubt this will be leveraging the newer Pipewire audio stack that makes this sort of thing easier than ever on Linux.
Something people have been asking for, a lot, is being able to share performance profiles. Valve are also looking into that. They don't plan to let you share graphics settings, but a profile of the options you change in the Quick Access performance menu sounds likely.
Finally, while they've repeatedly confirmed a Steam Deck 2 is planned, it doesn't seem like a "Pro" model will come as they like the idea of keeping everything at a set configuration for performance to make it easier for everyone and plan to keep that a while longer until it will really make a difference.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
slaapliedje Dec 17, 2022
Quoting: tuubiI specifically think of games like Track and Field and Summer Games that I think gamepads would be terrible on! But yeah in a lot of cases gamepads are nicer. But I do love the feel of a mechanical switch joystick!Quoting: slaapliedjeI had a single trigger version of the Speedking and it was pretty fun, but the stick was quite noisy if I recall correctly. My fave was and will always be the Suncom TAC 2. That said, I totally prefer a modern gamepad for comfort.Quoting: Craggles086What sucks is my favorite controller for the Atari/Commodore is the Epyx 500xj, also known as the Konix Speedking. But my old age makes it painful to use the triggers...Quoting: NanobangIt broke my heart when word came down that there would be no new Steam Controllers, and since then, gaming sessions feel a little ... bittersweet, like getting coffee with a dying friend. But news that there's talk of a Steam Controller 2? That's like getting news that there's a chance I'll get a new, better friend---maybe even before my dying friend ... dies?
Yeah, that sounds wrong. So, Steam Controller v 2.0? Awesome! Replacing dying friends? Not so awesome.
So a new controller will mean that I can say that the Steam controller is awesome and not get the response, “Then why has it been discontinued?”
Much in the same way that they would say it was a failure, so they are not going to try it for themselves. Can’t wait to see what they do for Steam Controller 2.
My childhood gaming experiences were spent with a Commodore 64 joystick in my hand, and the closest I come to that in modern pc gaming was using the Steam Controller.
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