Latest 30 Comments

While I'd like it to be less, I don't think it's necessarily overpriced. I'm under the impression it's relatively well-built and repairable, it has IR beacons for VR tracking, it has the newer TMR thumbsticks, the touchpads from the Steam Deck that are supposed to be quite good...

I'd blame the broader economy, currency strength, component prices, expected sales volume loss by all the people who've been laid off not buying new gaming hardware, etc.

It's not like I'd want Valve to have made it "cheaper" in some way, that'd be worse.

View this comment - View article - View full comments - Report this comment

I was pretty disappointed to hear that the controller would be $99. But looking at other controllers on the market with less features, I didn't realise they were also in and around that price point (I thought a standard DualSense and Xbox Controller were £30-40 at most). My original Steam Controller was £50 and I remember thinking that was pretty expensive at the time, but I did it because I knew it was good hardware.

I guess given the price of other similar hardware on the market, it's not as overpriced as I was thinking. Before comparing prices and before reading this thread, I bawked at the idea of spending more than £50 on a controller at absolute maximum. But I guess that's how it is nowadays when buying first-party. Plus, as others have said, the features of this controller and the fact that it's made by Valve, and because it's exactly what I want (the Steam Deck controls but on a standalone controller I can use on my PC), I'm still going to buy it.

View this comment - View article - View full comments - Report this comment

Quoting: ranger671... I only ask you to wonder why?...

For the simple reason that RUST (and I say this as a die hard C developer) contrary to every other language out there have the potential to give security assurances of the resulting binaries. And having that assurances in the core set of utilities is a good thing.

Secondly since these are new implementations while the old GNU ones are extremely conservatively coded, they can use new and modern algorithms to make these utilities much much faster. For most users this will be an insignificant benefit but for some heavy script users there can be quite huge benefits.

Now the main issue is that some of these utilities are not 100% feature complete yet, but then if no one will ever put them into a distribution then the road to get there will be even longer.

The change of license is highly unfortunate but is something the upstream developers of these utilities decided to to.

View this comment - View article - View full comments - Report this comment

Let's not forget that $99 does not include tax, so the actual price is actually higher.

View this comment - View article - View full comments - Report this comment

95% of people agree with the verified rating for titles? I find this extremely hard to believe. Did they just survey like 20 people at the valve office?

The "verified" program is completely worthless for me. It REGULARLY verifies some games that are completely broken and difficult or impossible to play, while not verifying completely wonderful easy to play games. In its current form I really just wish it didn't even exist at all. I just ignore it completely and head straight to the discussion forum and do a search for "deck" and read up. There are LOTS of other gamers in my same boat because every single I do this there are lots of other posts / threads asking this same question. Thus, I find it extremely hard to believe 95% of gamers think this situation is fine.

View this comment - View article - View full comments - Report this comment

nice! Every since this was suggested in the forum here, I've been using it on most of my games. Using it right now for Pragmata. The steam overlay itself is too buggy (I can't believe it even exists in this form) and this mangohud works all the time no fuss. Love it.

View this comment - View article - View full comments - Report this comment

Quoting: Purple Library Guy

Quoting: Johnologue

Quoting: kuhpunktPrice leaked via an early review: $99

Damn. I was hoping for closer to 70.

Wait for a Steam sale, I guess. 😃

Quoting: scaineA hundred dollars will hopefully translate to around £75 or so, maybe less.

A dualsense (PS5) controller is still £65 and doesn't have the dual touchpad or rear buttons, so I'm pretty comfortable with that pricing if it pans out as I hope.

or around 84,45€, but well I think that one is gonna sell no matter of the price tag is 100€ or 70€.
Maybe later iterations will be priced a bit cheeper.

View this comment - View article - View full comments - Report this comment

A hundred dollars will hopefully translate to around £75 or so, maybe less.

A dualsense (PS5) controller is still £65 and doesn't have the dual touchpad or rear buttons, so I'm pretty comfortable with that pricing if it pans out as I hope.

View this comment - View article - View full comments - Report this comment

Quoting: suchIt doesn't (apparently) have all the features a, say, Sony controller would have, and it won't replace a mouse.

Let's see now, according to the announcement:

• Capacitive touch magnetic thumbsticks


• Grip sense to activate/deactivate gyro


• Twin touchpads with haptic motors


• 4 assignable back buttons

Basically seems like Sony's Dualsense but more to me, and it could conceivably replace a mouse in the same way a keyboard nub or trackball can.

View this comment - View article - View full comments - Report this comment

Quoting: kuhpunktPrice leaked via an early review: $99

Can't quite pin that on RAM, unless jacking up the controller prices is part of that plan.

I also appreciate Valve probably isn't ordering a production run comparable to what a Sony needs at minimum, but still - it's too high. The thing is, this is a compromise controller. It doesn't (apparently) have all the features a, say, Sony controller would have, and it won't replace a mouse. The potential use cases for me don't quite justify a purchase "even" at $70.

View this comment - View article - View full comments - Report this comment

Finally this was sorely missed. 😀

Quoting: kuhpunktPrice leaked via an early review: $99

In-line with other controllers. Not too surprised.

View this comment - View article - View full comments - Report this comment

Don't worry about Wayland, it's not that bad. I had to install Ubuntu 25.04 this summer when my system broke cause I switched from Nvidia to AMD graphic card. The only things I miss from X11 is stuff like alt+F2 or ctrl+alt+backspace, now if the desktop environment freezes and doesn't respond, the only thing you can do is press reset button. Not that it happens often, but it's still a pain in the butt when it happens.

I'm pretty much on a barebones system since the summer, so I'm looking forward to clean installation of LTS. Probably next weekend, as Friday is a holiday. This gives Canonical an extra week to find possible bugs in the new release. I remember the old times when it was a good idea to give them at least a month, we've come a long way.

View this comment - View article - View full comments - Report this comment

eggrole is correct. The new license is MIT/Apache.

View this comment - View article - View full comments - Report this comment

Quoting: PhlebiacI realize there are "premium-priced" controllers on the market, but $99 seems high.

Eh, premium controllers (not talking about racing wheels, which can go into 4 digits, or VR equipment, which can hit 5 digits) are more like 250-ish USD, and that's without going into the silly 'expensive for the sake of being expensive' stuff like limited edition character controllers or gold-plated controllers or stuff like that.

View this comment - View article - View full comments - Report this comment

“ macOS

Fixed soundtrack playback not working on Apple Silicon machines. “

Sounds promising for Apple that Steam might be supporting Apple. They might even get Proton working on their OS the same way it does on Linux.

Steam Controller 1 used AA batteries, hence the lack of a battery monitor. If Steam Controller is being upgraded to rechargeable then that explains battery indicator, plus Bluetooth connectivity and you have a worthy upgrade.

View this comment - View article - View full comments - Report this comment

🦝

View this comment - View article - View full comments - Report this comment

Americans will stand up to this.

View this comment - View article - View full comments - Report this comment

Lol 🤣

View this comment - View article - View full comments - Report this comment

This looks incredible!!

View this comment - View article - View full comments - Report this comment

Quoting: ranger671I'm not sure why everyone is excited about the latest Ubuntu. The updated kernel has some very nice features, but the replacement of many of the basic utilities with RUST compiled versions leaves me very concerned. Heck, they couldn't even include the entirety of the suite of utilities that they wanted to replace due to security failures which have cropped up. They to want to recompile/recreate everything in GNU/Linux with RUST. I only ask you to wonder why? The fervor with which they seem to be moving and the control they are exerting on the direction of the GNU/Linux seems extreme. Most of the basic utilities (cp, rm, mv, df, du, ln, ....etc) have been in and working for years. They've been corrected and vetted repeatedly and are as stable as can even be possible, so, again, why replace them with new code written from scratch. The only benefit, I see, is to the corporations like Canonical and Red Hat, and that is to remove the GPL. I am an old IT fart and was around in the early days as I started in IT in 1985. GNU/Linux has become what it is due to the GPL being the way it is. By removing the need for the GPL, I can see a future where Linux will not be a truly free operating system. That corporations will come in and try to direct/mandate things and then eventually charge for aspects or even all of the OS. It will start with this change. Opening the door for copyrighted work to exist inside the core of the OS and an alternate licensing scenario that allows them to start charging. I encourage you to question everything. We've gotten to this point by keeping most of the development as projects of passion, but look at all the current developers which are actually employed by these corporations. They want to make money (what business doesn't), but the question is will it still be Linux? Will it still be a bastion of freedom to code what you want, to implement what you want moving forward, if we stand by and allow business needs and corporate greed to move Linux in the this direction?

Ubuntu just had an outside security firm check the utilities converted to rust and found over 130 CVE's. Ubuntu is seriously concerned over the quality of the rust code.

View this comment - View article - View full comments - Report this comment

"have features for parents to control what under 18s can access"

This feature is called parenting, but it comes with embodyment, not on software.

The bill is completely untenable, impossible to comply with. People will reject it, it won't pass - if it somehow does, it will be repealed.

View this comment - View article - View full comments - Report this comment

Reject Continental Philosophy utterly, it will get you foolish censorship hounds like Australia currently elects.

As an American with 1st Amendment protections, protections which recognize the rights all humans intrinsically possess due to their nature, I find the censorship demands of Australias esafety commissioner to be contemptible and laughable. Keep your filthy ideas off my Republic, Australia.

View this comment - View article - View full comments - Report this comment

Quoting: Johnologue

Quoting: kuhpunktPrice leaked via an early review: $99

Damn. I was hoping for closer to 70.

Wait for a Steam sale, I guess. 😃

View this comment - View article - View full comments - Report this comment

Quoting: kuhpunktPrice leaked via an early review: $99

Damn. I was hoping for closer to 70.

View this comment - View article - View full comments - Report this comment

Not gonna lie, there's something quite off-putting about mixing This War of Mine with marketing/shareholder language. The point of it was to bring attention to what war is like for civilians in a more personal and understandable way than you would get from watching the news. I know it's still a commercial product, but I hope they treat the subject matter in the 'reimagining' with the respect and sensitivity it deserves.

View this comment - View article - View full comments - Report this comment

Quoting: PaldinoXHave Valve talked at all about using the Steam Controller on games outside of Steam? I own more games in my GOG library and if the controller doesn't function with games not added to the Steam launcher, that's a deal breaker for me. I don't even need the touchpad and gyro to work, just having the main controller function as a Xinput pad would be good enough for me.

you can change your desktop layout to a normal gamepad layout to make it work

View this comment - View article - View full comments - Report this comment

Quoting: kuhpunktPrice leaked via an early review: $99

I forget how much I paid for the original Steam Controller, but I'm pretty sure it was less than half of that. I realize there are "premium-priced" controllers on the market, but $99 seems high.

View this comment - View article - View full comments - Report this comment

I wonder if the sc-controller maintainers are planning to support the Steam Controller 2. Could be neat to use it for Luanti or SuperTuxKart.

View this comment - View article - View full comments - Report this comment

Quoting: PaldinoXI don't even need the touchpad and gyro to work, just having the main controller function as a Xinput pad would be good enough for me.

If you don't need the touchpad or gyro to work, why do you want a $100 Steam Controller? There are several very good third party controllers that work just fine in Linux, for Steam, GOG and otherwise. I suggest the 8bitDo Ultimate 2.

View this comment - View article - View full comments - Report this comment

Quoting: PaldinoXHave Valve talked at all about using the Steam Controller on games outside of Steam? I own more games in my GOG library and if the controller doesn't function with games not added to the Steam launcher, that's a deal breaker for me. I don't even need the touchpad and gyro to work, just having the main controller function as a Xinput pad would be good enough for me.

That's a Xinput controller. A recent kernel and recent sdl2 or sdl3 should be sufficient.

View this comment - View article - View full comments - Report this comment