prices that have raised eyebrows among some gamers.
WTF?
Only those that know nothing about the features and tech internal.
price is a steal.
With prices of hardware in general world-wide (non-ram related) we’re lucky this isn’t $120US or $150US
Switch 2 Joycon’s are the same price for fuck sakes…
Xbox Elite Wireless Controller is more expensive, and can’t do the things this controller can do.
Also Xbox controllers have garbage ass build quality. Valve seems to make pretty solid hardware. The only one I see as comparable is the PS5 dualsense controller, but it’s still missing some things like the extra buttons. It has a touchpad, but just one, and it’s not optimally placed, imho.
I have serious stick drift on Dualsense controllers after using them on and off for just a year. 3 controllers, all with the same issue.
I like the Dualsense a lot at its best, but I go through roughly a controller per year probably. One of them something with the rumble loosened. Not noticeable in some games, but when I was playing Returnal it sounded like a jackhammer. Another the sticks got…sticky in a way that was really distracting. Stick drift on another, and my current one the right arrow stopped working. I had to re-map it to the left stick click to play Infinite Wealth, and other games like Elden Ring just won’t work with it.
Agreed though, when they work they’re comfortable, responsive, intuitive. At their best they’re the best controller I’ve used.
But for $80+ these days they should have hall effect sticks and mechanical switches. I’ve started buying https://www.gulikit.com/ controllers, which have both and are much cheaper, but not as comfy or responsive.
Ackshully, the PS5 touchpad has two sides that can be individually configured. But you’re right that it’s not optimally placed.
The Index conttollers were a bit of a joke, in terms of both build quality and ergonomics. I had like 3 RMAs.
Build quality is debatable, but I thought the ergonomics were great. What didn’t you like about them?
Never had a problem with mine and I have smacked them into solid objects pretty hard a few times.
Anecdotal RMAs aside, I think the ergonomics are fantastic and they blew every other VR controller I’ve tried out of the water.
we’re lucky this isn’t $120US
£85 GBP is pretty much $120 USD (it’s $114).
And that’s very much what the yanks will pay for it. American prices are always before taxes.
Polish prise is 420 pln wchich is also 115$
Last year my wife picked up a pair of regular Xbox pads for us to use when playing couch co-ops over Sunshine/Moonlight. When the pricing for the new Steam controller was announced, she went back and had a look at what she paid. They’ve gone up in price and are currently £80.
Each.
For an extra £5 you get haptics, touch pads, FAR better stick technology, and all in a package that’s as repairable as it can be.
Yeah, £85 is a fucking bargain at this point.
Right? Just compare it to the glued mess that is the $90 Switch 2 controller or to a $200 DualSense pro (or whatever name Sony’s premium controller goes by).
Say what you will but Valve built the Steam Controller to last. I expect the first weeks to be a little bumpy on the software side (as is always the case with controllers) but it will quickly become very future rich. Likely more so than any other controller. And Valve is doing all that with a focus on Linux.
I am not one to easily praise US tech companies and Valve is far from perfect but the Steam Deck has a very good track record and this controller seems like it meets those standards as well.
It‘s a very good deal if repairability, full Linux support and feature richness are what you‘re looking for.
Sorry dude, I’m not paying $100 USD for a controller. The last controller I bought cost me ~$30 USD (GameSir T4 Kaleid) and has everything I need, including hall effect sticks. The steam controller having cool tech like touchpads and a gyro and whatever else is cool I guess, but I don’t need or want that. No amount of stuff like that is gonna make me spend that much on a controller.
So yes, the steam controller price raised my eyebrows, in the same way that basically all first-party controllers do. They’re all crazily overpriced imo.
They’re priced for all those things you don’t want that other people do. It’s a bit like complaining that a racing motorcycle is too expensive because all you need is a scooter to get around.
If it’s priced like a racing motorcycle then you shouldn’t be surprised when people raise their eyebrows at the price.
Do you often look up the prices of racers to be shocked by the price?
Only when people comment that ‘the price is normal, actually’, and that I ought to buy one because they’re so cheap.
In comparison to comparable devices. Are you incapable of understanding context?
The original comment couldn’t understand why people were ‘raising their eyebrows’ at the price. I said because it’s basically a luxury item. Whether there are other alternatives that are even less value doesn’t factor into it. That’s the ‘door in the face’ fallacy.
Regardless of whether a Rolls Royce is more or less ‘value’ than a Lamborghini there’s gonna be a whole bunch of people that are gonna look at that and say ‘why would you spend X times the money when it gets you from A to B just the same as a Toyota Corolla’. That’s the answer to the original question.
Both of the other controllers you listed are already too expensive for what they are. That doesn’t really justify the price of the Steam controller imo. This isn’t a “pro” controller either. This is the only one Valve offers. Sure it has a lot of good tech and features, but its all stuff they have been putting on the deck for years. I would hardly call the price a steal. I feel like a fair price for a controller like this would have been about $70-80. Not to mention, Valve isn’t trying to only sell this to tech enthusiasts. They want this to be a widespread product. $100 for a controller is too steep for an average consumer.
I’m more than willing to pay a premium for a PC controller that isn’t going to have stick drift and will work a few years down the line. God knows how many xbox controllers I’ve gone through.
I trust Valve, I’ve used their product and played their games for decades and they’ve never let me down. they’ve made gaming on linux accessible and now extremely easy to set up and get going. $100 for a controller I will pay for.
I’m definitely pushing for this to last a long time. The battery is the only thing that concerns me a little. I use rechargeable Eneloops with the original controller, and there’s no danger of the AA battery form factor disappearing anytime soon. I’ll likely grab a spare battery for the new one eventually just to keep in reserve.
GamersNexus did a review of it and tested the battery life. They had to cut the test short after 36 straight hours. Plus they’re partnering with IFixIt again for replacement parts
I watched both of his videos already. When I said I want this controller to last a while, I mean literal decades. I know iFixit will have replacement parts, but there’s still going to be a point where even they will stop carrying them.
I mean at that point you would probably solder a phone battery into it or something like we did with the PSP when replacement batteries got terrible.
Yeah, I’m gonna be on the look out for people doing this. Gamers Nexus showed the battery voltage as 3.85V. I was worried at the time that this voltage isn’t too common, but it seems that fear is unfounded. Never had a PSP, so that’s cool to know.
my 2 cents but 3.85 is super reasonable for lithium batteries, which range from 4.2 to 3.6 depending on charge. DIYing some other battery in should be trivial voltage-wise
I’m so pissed (at myself), I thought this was going to be delayed indefinitely like the steam machine so I broke down and bought an xbox elite controller a month ago. That stupid controller was 250 bucks after tax and it doesn’t have half the features the steam controller does and its only 90 dollars.
I really should have been more patient.
Damn, you really should have. The controller isn’t affected by the RAMpocalypse, so people have been suspecting this would end up being released first since the delay was announced. I’m waiting for the Frame most of all, so I’ll take your comment as a reminder to not break down and buy another headset early.
Stay strong
250 USD ? In the US, like on Amazon or Best Buy, is that the normal price for an Elite + Tax?
Holy shit. Now I understand why people are defending the SC2 pricing.
Yes, there are several premium controllers in the $200 range. People unhappy with the price are thinking of the SC as an expensive base model controller when feature-wise it’s more like an inexpensive premium one.
Feels more in between to me. Premium would have better buttons, adjustable polling rate, adjustable stick length, maybe trigger stops or swappable face plates, adjustable weights. It really does give base model controller vibes. Plus it costs a third of what I paid for a steam deck, and that controller came with a screen and a computer. Recent economic devastation notwithstanding it feels like it should offer more for the price to me.
I have two Elite 2s, one for my wife and I, was hoping they’d finally last us a long while, nope, within a year both have stick drift and faulty bumpers.
My coworker is on his 10th or 11th Elite controller.
He bought one and when it developed stick drift in 6 months he went to try to do a warranty and it’d supposedly take a month or so and just be a repair. He ended up repairing it himself with new sticks, which also developed stick drift in 6 months. Oh and the back buttons developed double clicks.
He ended up just going to a store(target, best buy, whatever) and bought a new one and then put his old one in the box and returned it.
Does it every 6 months when the controller starts acting up. So been doing this for years. Target doesn’t care, best buy doesn’t care.
Funnily enough I told him about the Steam Controller and he said why buy that when there’s the Elite controller or the PS pro controller…I’m like you’re on your 10th one? Why would I buy something that has that many issues?
Oh good, I have that to look forward too.
Yeah, maybe you’ll be lucky lol.
I was very angry considering how expensive the controllers were, I’ve become increasingly disillusioned with Microsoft/Google/Etc products as they charge a premium price yet theyre often much worse then competitors at a similar price.
I do tend to treat things with extreme care and as a result I still have functional xbox 360 controllers with almost no stick drift. So yeah I may get lucky but I still wish I had been patient.
Nice! I wish I had preserved my special ODST controller from the 360 days.
I got a gamesir controller which retails for nearly the same price, but I got it at half price so I’m somewhat OK. I would have been devastated if I had to shell out full price a week before steam controller got on my radar.
My condolences, and may your unfortunate purchase serve it’s purpose for long enough to be worth its price and more.
Reselling might be something to consider. Since it’s so new you might get a reasonable amount back, and that could help you justify getting this one instead 👍
I still don’t get the controversy.
Are you an avid Touchpad user on the Deck or on the OG Steam Controller? Buy this.
Do you just want a controller for your PC? Buy an Xbox, PS or Third party.People think they have to buy it for some reason, they just can’t fathom not being the target audience.
Yes this exactly haha it’s crazy.
It’s the rear buttons,
And the insane customization and re-mapping of buttons/functions/gyro/etc that steam allows you to create that sells me on these controllers.
8bitdo pro 2 has gyro, back buttons, and native steam input support for like 40 bucks, so it’s gotta be mostly the touchpad.
Correct. On top of that, the 8BitDo acts as a bog standard Xinput device without the need for Steam, so if you’re not a touchpad user there’s really no reason to get the Steam Controller over the 8BitDo.
The only controversial part is that it only works on steam. Which is pretty wild imo. Why would you need more that just the controller’s driver for it to work?
I thought that turned out not to be true? That by default it behaved like a joystick and mouse like the original steam controller?
It’s wild because it isn’t true
Like I said to another person, there are multiple reviews that mention this. Do you have any source that proves otherwise?
It does work as a mouse by default. Valve calls it “Lizard Mode”, and you use the touchpad to move the cursor and the triggers to click.
But yeah I do agree they should have made standard buttons and sticks act as XInput and the touchpad as the mouse by default.that being said, I fucking hate microsoft for stifling controller innovation with their antiquated ass xinput so i when i see a controller not support it i have to force myself to not think “god bless”I can‘t speak about software updates just yet because I have only seen them being applied via Steam but the controller works out of the box. I‘m assuming you can update it by downloading a file too, though. That would put it far above some competitors because guess what? A lot of them let you install some shitty software for that. At least Steam is already installed on my machine. I run Linux after all and ironically Steam is already helping me setting up controllers from other manufacturers.
Do you have any source for this? Multiple reviewers (e.g. gamersnexus) have said that if you don’t launche the game through steam, the controller won’t work.
I have the og steam controller but I’m not going to buy this one.
If you have a working controller, why would you buy any controller?
I have a few controllers but I do need another wireless one for playing coop games on the TV.
Grand total it has 4 extra buttons, 2 capacitive strips, 2 touchpads, gyro, and the fancy magnetic joysticks. $100 did not surprise me at all.
Of course, if you don’t care about any of those features, it isn’t the best deal, in the same way that a luxury sports car makes for a shit commuter vehicle. Not that the steam controller is “luxury” but like, if you don’t want the extra features then the higher price probably isn’t worth it. That doesn’t make it overpriced, it means you aren’t the target audience.
Full disclosure. I’m that target audience. I’m already mentally mapping extra buttons to the left touchpad and thinking about setting the back buttons to my armored core’s shoulder weapons.
It was a breath of fresh air to see Valve employees on interviews clearly stating “it does and has all these things, if you don’t want or need them, don’t buy it.” Not in the usual corporate entitlement way, but actually a pro consumer rights POV. They are not gonna pressure everyone and their grandmother to buy one, they made a premium tool for their steam machine and are aware of it.
the magnetic sticks are worth the extra cost so there will be no stick drift
It also has a ton of premade layouts already available on launch, as it has feature parity with the steam deck and those profiles will work with the sc.
The fancy joysticks is the only thing I might actually want.
Since nobody has made a controller as reliable as the old wired 360 controller and you can;t get that anymore I’d really like something less prone to stick drift if you give it a funny look.
Its like a few dollars more than other controllers with double the features and quality. What are people complaining about? 85 for something that’ll last years and give you 1000s of hours of enjoyment is a no brainer
A standard, official Xbox controller is $85 CAD. This thing is $150. That’s almost double. I agree, the features sound great (especially having used the original steam controller, I know how good their touchpads are), but still… Almost double.
Gamers divided on a piece of hardware? No shit
It‘s almost as if it‘s not for everyone. Just like a $85 mouse or keyboard aren‘t. If you‘re still happily rocking your 10+ year old $20 third party controller alongside your $5 mouse then by all means skip this hardware release, folks.
The only thing stopping me from buying the new Steam Controller is all of the original Steam Controllers I have that are all still working fine.
I dug out one of my OG Steam Controllers today. I basically got it free with a HEAVILY discounted Steam Link, so I’ve never really used it.
Turns out that right touch pad is ridiculously sensitive, to the point that it’s unusable. So I need to spend some time figuring it out.
Fortunately they came correct, and every aspect of every input is insanely adjustable.
Yeah, I’m not sure what was up with it yesterday, but I’ve spent some time this afternoon messing about with it and it’s kinda nice. That’s using Moonlight from my Mac too. The more I fiddle with it, the better I’ll figure out how to adjust it to my preferences.
Still doesn’t feel as good as kb+m, but for casual Powerwash Simulator 2 on my Macbook on the sofa, it’s pretty cool. And I guess that once I get used to it It’ll be much nicer.
If you’re using them on a docked Steam Deck, the new controller has a dedicated “…” menu button, so you don’t have to get off the couch whenever you need to mess with DeckyLoader
But that D-PAD,
Serious talk, this new steam controller only exists because the old one didn’t have a D-Pad, sure, the new touch pads are nicer, but really we are all upgrading our old steam controllers to this one for the d-pad.
The left touchpad acts as a D pad on the original, you can just use touch or press till it clicks. Still might be nice to have a better one though.
The left touchpad acts as a D pad on the original
Oh we know, and it didn’t work well…
I like it. But if it can’t work as a standard gamepad without Steam then it’s not worth it for me.
I don’t need the fancy features, but standard compatibility like an xbox controller (without third party tools).
Wait, what? It doesn’t work with non-steam games?
It works with non-steam games and the trackpad might even work without steam on Linux, but it will most certainly not work on Windows without Steam and if you want to customize your buttons with steam input, you need to launch the game through steam, which is able to launch non-steam binaries.
$100 for a controller that will only work through Steam is way too much for me, but I can see how it would be worth it for anyone who exclusively plays games through Steam and wants to play games designed for a mouse on a controller.
It’ll work outside Steam using whatever controls you have set up for its desktop profile, which can be the stock Xbox layout, and I plan to play a few games that way, but yes, the controller does require Steam Input to shine.
You still have to have Steam installed and running for the controller to function. You cannot plug it into a fresh installed OS and have it works out of the box, unlike even the cheapest of Chinesium knock off controllers.
Ah, I guess people are working off different definitions of “running outside Steam.” After looking into it, the lack of DirectInput support is indeed not great. It doesn’t affect my use cases, and the first Steam Controller got open source drivers pretty early, so I doubt it’ll actually be a blocker soon after release, but I’ll refrain from commenting on it until more happens.
It’s still pretty shitty support from a $100 hw device.
Oh, does it? My understanding was that if you wanted to play, say, games through Gamepass on it, it wouldn’t work since you can’t run those through Steam. I’d be glad for everyone if it does work, though!
My OG Steam controller is still kicking.
I use it in desktop mode more than anything these daysOnce it works natively on general Linux distros I’m buying it.
Do you mean without steam input? My understanding is that the internals default to sending mouse & keyboard inputs which get translated to controller output in software. I’m sure someone will write an open source driver to get it working without Steam at some point, but if you don’t mind running games through Steam then it’s already working.
I feel burned by the first one, but I know it’s a skill/learning curve issuie. I may grab one of the new ones but I’d like to play with one first.
I was already considering spending 105€ on a flydigi vader 5 pro with every accessory included. The steam controller is like a sidegrade with features I already enjoy from my steam deck (plus some more) and I may eventually get both (or a vader 6 pro when that comes out) but so far I’m really excited about it. For desktop use I assume it’s done through the buried-in-the-settings desktop controller layout. I’ve heard you can hold a button to switch to pure gamepad mode. Even if that doesn’t work, I don’t particularly mind adding heroic games to steam or something like that.
I hate round d-pads so much.
This thing does not look comfortable to hold.
I’m willing to be proven wrong, but I don’t see myself adopting the touchpads over the analog sticks.
At least on the Steam Deck, the touchpads are pretty effective as a mouse replacement in games. You wouldn’t play soulslikes with touchpads instead of joysticks, but RTS or 4X games gain a lot from having them.
They also make typing way better compared to selecting letters with a joystick.
So, I’ve got a Steam Deck and I’ve tried them out — my only problem is that the Steam Deck is a touchscreen. Why bother with the touchpads to type when I can just touch the screen?
I haven’t tried the functionality of it for RTS or 4x games because… well, if I feel inclined to play those games it’ll be on my PC.
But all this goes back to my orignal point, the thing just doesn’t look comfy to hold. If the touchpads aren’t meant to be competent analog stick replacements then it looks like my thumbs will be awkwardly positioned somewhat over the touchpads. Not only does it seem like the analog sticks are cramped, but what happens when my palm rests on my controller and the touchpad freaks out?
Idk, I actually want Valve to succeed so I’m not really trying to shit on the controller - this are just my thoughts. I could be wrong and it’s the literal best controller ever. Fingers crossed.
