Valve did a bit of a woops here, as they recently accidentally leaked the designs for what looks like their upcoming Steam Controller 2 and a new VR controller that is likely to come with the long leaked Deckard VR headset.
This is all speculation as always from leaks, as what we've seen might not even get released. As we saw from the Steam Deck, Valve go through a lot of iterations on their hardware before release.
Spotted by SteamDB developer Pavel Djundik on Bluesky, the newer Steam Controller 2 looks like everything I wanted. Here's a slightly upscaled version of what they found for what's code-named Ibex.
Looks rather nice, and I'm really happy to see dual thumbsticks and thumbpads, much more like the Steam Deck. Clearly Valve have taken notes about how much people love the inputs on the Steam Deck. My only concern there is how thick it looks, so it will be very interesting to eventually get my hands on it to see how it feels.
According to Djundik on Bluesky, here's how the leak happened:
The way it leaked is funny, [they] put "freetodownload" on the SteamVR app for anonymous accounts to access, which made all the depots accessible, and one of the depots was the contents for deckard/roy.
What do you think? Will you buy one?
Quoting: kuhpunktQuoting: chickenb00I pass: the trackpads do not have prime real estate where your thumbs will naturally rest on the controller.
Why do you rest your fingers anywhere? I have mine on the sticks or the buttons the whole time.
Our thumb's natural rotation is like 70° which normally is where the joysticks are placed. This proves maximum rotation for our thumb down to 0° and up to 90°.
For trackpads to be used optimally, they need to reside in the optimal spot on the controller. Steam Controller 1 does this: trackpads are in the place of prominence for max comfort. Steam Deck pads require we rotate our thumbs and flex them, which is fatiguing and not ideal for accuracy.
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