Submitted 2 weeks ago by ampersandrew@lemmy.world to games@lemmy.world
https://store.steampowered.com/sale/hardware
No prices yet. I may never financially recover from this.
Dang. The new Steam Controller has a D-pad, buttons, thumbsticks, gyros, and trackpads.
And the thumbsticks are TMR (like Hall effect, but nicer).
As long as it’s comfortable to reach all that stuff, that’s gonna be a new bar for PC game controllers.
Now if it just had a replaceable battery…
It does! Verge reports that battery pops out like old cellphone batteries
It probably will. Watch Gamers Nexus’ video, it has a short clip that shows the battery, and it looks like it’s held in a receptacle like removable phone batteries. Valve have already said that you’d be able to disassemble the controller with a screwdriver, but no word yet on replacement parts.
I personally think the Deck is very comfortable given its bulk. I have a lot of faith in the controller ergonomics.
The first time I held a deck I was kind of amazed at how comfortable it is to hold. Bricks shouldn’t be that comfy to hold, but, it is. The ergonomics are spot on. Gotta handle the Steam Controller V2 myself before any verdict, but I have high hopes.
The 8bitDo Ultimate 2 has TMR sticks too, best controller I’ve used. Better than the Xbox Elite Controller Series 2. I do wish the 8bitDo had 4 underside buttons instead of only 2, but it’s still better. The sticks are insane.
~$25 for an 8bitdo ultimate 2c! The price is just too good. I know it doesn’t have TMR or the extra buttons, but it just works and feels really good to me compared to the xbox elite controller that got the shoulder button issue within 3 months for me.
The trackpads are unnecessary imo. Games made for controller aren’t going to expect the deck touchpads, they’re gonna expect xbox and playstation controllers without it. The touchpads just fit a very specific niche of people who want to play with the steam deck on a TV in games that are not fully controller supported and don’t have a keyboard and mouse paired for that use case. Always better to have options I suppose.
Literally just got one the other day!
I’ve been using OEM controllers forever, and after the Xbox Elite controller crapped out on me after ONE year, I gave up on “premium” controllers. It had everything I wanted in a controller EXCEPT durability.
The Ultimate 2 is amazing so far! For $60, I can’t complain. Much better than the PS5 controller I had been using for over a year. Nothing terrible with it except te battery. It seems to need to be charged on a wall outlet to fully charge… but that could be because I’m using Linux, but it also happened in Windows so…
Excited to continue using it for the next few months to really wear it in, but I am legitimately impressed with it so far!
Cheers!
I’ve been dreaming if this since the first steam controller released. I absolutely loved it, but it definitely had it’s quirks and issues. This seems just like the upgrade that I wished for in every way possible, with some added nice stuff on top. I just hope it won’t be $100+
I got the Steam Controller (OG) when it was $5. I wanted to love it so bad, but never could get over the full replacement of the thumbstick on the right side with a trackpad. I could even get over the “cheap” feeling plastic, but that non existent right thumbstick was just too weird for me to get over.
I’m a life long controller gamer though, so maybe it was the best thing ever for some, but I am happy they went with the Steam Deck layout, as that was what I was hoping for!
But it’s missing a 3.5mm headphone jack bizarrely.
Only one company has apparently learned how to print money and not be ghouls.
To be fair, they say they made a lot of tradeoffs in the name of being price conscience, but they haven’t put a price on it yet.
They have haptic grip sensors and ALL the sticks and pads, I wonder what they traded off lol
I mean, they get a sizable cut from the majority of games sold on PC. I think that’s their business model.
I hear you about loot boxes and skins and stuff. It’s just, that has to be a small part of their total profit.
Any data to back that claim? I thought most of their income is from Steam and games(including those with pushing gambling on children) is a very small share.
Steam is still privately owned, never went public. No share holders demanding things surely is a major factor.
I’m aware. Once Gabe retires or dies, I’m going to start distrusting Valve. Once they go public, it’s over.
Privately owned still means shareholders. Ultimately it comes down to the board and the rules around it, not so much as to whether it is publicly listed.
Yeah sure I love their hardware and contributions to software, but I’d say profiteering off of children gambling for over 10 years is pretty ghoulish.
Sometimes I think about how LOATHED Steam was when in launched. That was probably valid even. Still, it feels worth noting that Valve is maybe THE only company from my childhood that feels like it largely stayed true to its spirit, or whatever.
People who came to Steam later on probably don’t realise that when it was new it barely fucking worked.
Downloads crawled, games refused to launch because of authentication issues, friends/chat was offline for literally months, etc.
The only reason it became widely adopted was because Valve forced you to use it if you wanted to play the latest CS or, later, HL2. Everyone hated it.
What if he really wanted to make it up to you? Is there anything he could do to apologize?
friends/chat was offline for literally months
Friends lists didn’t work reliably for years.
This is true but this was also done at at time when all of these things were unprecedented. Valve was blazing a trail with Steam and digital distribution and there was nothing else even close.
It was pretty janky. I received a download code for Half Life 2 in the box with my Radeon 9800 Pro several months before the game was actually released. I didn’t have a lot of use for Steam before then, but I installed it anyway and my account is so old that back when the account IDs were still numeric and sequential, mine was four digits.
I only got Steam when HL2 released because I had no need for it before then. I don’t remember having any real negative feelings about it.
I was one of the haters when it first launched because I was on dialup at the time and physical discs I bought were forcing me to install steam AND THEN install a massive patch that did not work on dialup. My first day playthrough of Skyrim was ruined because of that. Took a week for that shit to download even though I went physically to a store.
But now Steam is the last man standing between us and corporate greed.
But now Steam is the last man standing between us and corporate greed.
Man how quickly people forget what things were like before the lawsuits forced valve to make steam more consumer friendly and regulatory abiding…
I remember being annoyed that I had to install yet another launcher and make yet another account when I was installing portal. But I didn’t know at the time that this was the launcher to end most other launchers and accounts, or at the very least made most of that transparent other then adding an extra click to launch some games.
Iirc, Blizzard had just replaced the wow in-game patcher with a launcher (though I don’t recall if they had a unified launcher for each game, if they all had their own at that point, or if it was just wow), Oblivion had a game launcher, and I think there were a few others. Some of them even needed to be installed separately iirc.
Steam is nice because, being the launcher for most of my games, it’s just always open and helps organize my games. And it doesn’t feel like its main purpose is to make money, with everything else just being about opening pathways to that money. And even though it is meant to make Valve money, it’s the lack of blatant dark patterns and constant upsell attempts that makes it feel better than most of the rest of the commercial world.
They have good PR and fanboy propaganda. They’re every bit as evil as every game company out there. Steam fans just got tricked into thinking Gabe was THEIR billionaire and steam is THEIR billionaire corporation, and they can do no wrong. No other game platform has a fan base as aggressive and hostile when you point it out
Technically no PR. Their MO has been to let others do the work. Their games come from hired modders, with many skins made by the community. Their localizations are from the community. The game devs and publishers have to moderate their own spaces on Steam. The players do product promotions by using the social network of Steam. Valve is practically unreachable for the press, and their actual press releases are the rawest I’ve seen: infrequent, featuring no images and little information. Their press account is run by Kaci Aitchinson, the local Fox News host who was originally hired to present The International for Dota 2, but ended up doing a bit of everything, like many at Valve.
Why does everyone here Yuck other peoples Yum? You aren’t forced to buy them
The irony of this being your previous comment
Steam’s main thing is that they have recognised that killing the golden goose is a bad thing for everybody. They have consistently played for long term growth and profits, over purely short term gains.
Steam has made mistakes, but their demonstrated values have been shown to be mostly compatible with mine. I can work with that.
Also, them being privately owned means that they are less have seagull investors swooping in and demanding short term gains now now now.
The downvotes seem to agree with you…?
It happened to me (with blizzard)…and it will happen to you!
It basically didn’t add any value to the experience. We just wanted to play CS, and steam just got in the way.
I just paid $20 for a physical copy Counter Strike, and I find out I need to install an additional launcher and make an account to play the game I just installed. It’s the principle of the thing!
I think its because there’s likely more people who got into Steam after Steam was already a pretty popular storefront so clueless about the growing pains. My first ever PC game purchase was from the Steam store and that was maybe back in the 2010s.
If Valve went DRM free like GOG, I would have no reason to ever buy games anywhere else
(apart from exclusives, which should be illegal IMO)
because most people got exposed to steam on HL2’s launch. Where they bought the physical game, came home, installed it off like 5 CDs… then had to run steam to decrypt it and download more files because the fucking install was encrypted, and the goddamn fucking decryption took like 8 hours if you didnt have the worlds greatest computer.
Nope, I’m still totally not salty about not being able to play the game I fucking bought until the day after cause bullshit encryption fuckery, why would you ever think that.
I still have that goddamn box somewhere… i need to dig it up and see what release retail HL2 is like compared to HL2 you’d downlaod today from steam…
Hello, Veteran Steam User (made my account the day steam released, I was big into the half life/cs/tfc scene back in the day), steam was HORRIBLE when it released. I had a cable modem way back then and it was incredibly slow. Only the ugly green theme, and crashed all the time. It was only used as DRM, not as a way to catalogue games. I clung to those WAN servers up until Valve no longer supported them, it was a sad day at the time.
Did Valve just announce THREE of something?
Second steam machine (not deck!), Second VR headset, and second controller ( I actually don’t know if that’s totally true)
Holy shit you’re right.
Been waiting for a competitor to the meta quest. Looks like my patience has paid off. I hope it’s not too pricey/compromised
“The Frame headset won’t be priced higher than the Index”:
Why did I buy a PSVR2 with the pc adapter three weeks ago …
Should have waited instead of buying the Pico.
A brief moment of KDE desktop shown.
2026 will be the year of Linux Desktop!
Valve remains committed to an open PC ecosystem
happy noises
I want them all, but mostly the Frame. Finally decent Linux VR? On a standalone device that can also stream from a PC? On ARM?! It seems too good to be true.
Oh my god, my wallet is in trouble haha
The controller is exactly what I wanted. Take a Steam Deck, cut out the middle, glue the grips back together.
When I look at this announcement, the hardware is very exciting, for sure. But it is Valve’s dedication to Linux that really has me smiling. I don’t see three hardware devices to buy. I see two big proclamations for which the hardware is the message:
SteamOS on desktop! It seemed inevitable but it’s still great to see.
STEAM VR USING LINUX AS ITS TARGET PLATFORM?!?!?
I will grant that it’s very possible I buy all three pieces of the hardware, even though I like building my own PCs. I will also grant that Valve’s support for linux probably would not be what it is without the enshittification of Microsoft’s ecosystem. But in this world I’m gonna go ahead and accept the imperfect good news.
Where’s my Steam Phone Gabe ?
Finally! I’ve been holding out for years waiting on steam to release a new VR set, time to finally get one!
I’ve been saying for years that VR can get off my lawn until I can buy Linux native hardware. I guess I’m interested in VR, now.
“I may never financially recover from this.”
is well said.
I need to buy all of these.
NGL the cube thingy looks so damn attractive to me, especially as I don’t own any form of PC gaming…
Now please Steam, officially sell to Mexico god damn it!
Hmm this makes me wonder if the Steam Deck 2 will be ARM. If the Steam Frame works well if that could be a way for Valve to push more performance/battery life out of the deck
This is so fucking good for linux gaming
why is this thing not called Steam Engine?
Really excited for this and hopefully that means steamvr on Linux will actually start working better! The current Beta build is much better but still lots of work to do.
I’m definitely getting the frame as upgrade from quest 3 which I rarely use due to it being attached to Meta. The controller is no brainer considering that old steamdeck controller is still one of the best controllers on the market. Not sure about steam machine mostly because I just built my own PC - would have totally waited for it if I knew it was coming but it looks so slick.
Very excited for Linux in 2026!
If Valve makes ARM Linux work properly as a gaming/desktop OS, I will uhh hmm.
I will buy this thing.
Lets fucking go! This lineup looks sick.
I hope the Frame is as cheap or cheaper than a Meta Quest 3.
As someone still using Steam Controller 1 on the daily, I am stoked to see that they have not abandoned the trackpads. Civ from the couch ftw.
That controller makes me swoon.
I can’t wait to get the controller
Hell yeah! I have an upgrade path for my original Steam Controllers!
The frame being a standalone linux headset is huge, hopefully this does to vr what the deck did to pancake.
(I know vr works on linux already but it's a pain)
How big a deal is this eye tracking that then only shows higher resolution stuff where you’re looking? Is it legit and works well?
Where steamphone
newthrowaway20@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
I posted this in the other thread, but wanna share here too:
Most interesting thing to me is the Frame apparently runs a Snapdragon 8 Gen 3, and is using SteamOS, implying official ARM support for SteamOS, Steam and Proton! Could mean steam and proton coming to android too.
dataprolet@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 weeks ago
And the base would be Arch Linux ARM, right? So that should see an uptick in development too.
kilgore_trout@feddit.it 2 weeks ago
Arch Linux has been implementing a build system for other architectures. Perhaps they’ll make ARM official by the time Frame comes out.
Katana314@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
I’m still a little curious how that will work for games. Are they going to somehow emulate Win32 amd64 games? Do devs have to recompile them in some new way? Will engines support it beyond Unity and Unreal?
charizardcharz@piefed.world 2 weeks ago
It was mentioned in the LTT coverage. Aside from native ARM games they have a translation layer(FEX) to play x86 games on ARM. They'll have a "Verified" tag like the Steam Deck for compatibility. I assume you'll still be able to force trying to run unverified games.
Natanael@slrpnk.net 2 weeks ago
Yup, FEX to translate x86 to ARM.
baronvonj@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
The Frame isn’t playing the games natively on its ARM chip. It’s just streaming audio/visual data from the PC and relaying the controller inputs back to the PC.
grue@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Jeff Geerling is probably having a fit right now.
noxypaws@pawb.social 2 weeks ago
what does that homophobic ass have to do with it, is he not a fan of ARM or something?
stupidcasey@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
It is fascinating and a huge step, but I want to keep expectations low. It will work, but it will not be as compatible as x86 Proton, not at all. It is first and primarily an OS for streaming games and running VR. That is the VR rendering from the streaming computer, not the VR game itself. In other words, they only had to get exactly one app to run well enough for public use. According to the developer, it is working with a surprising amount of games. I agree, one game is surprising, but trust me when I say you will not be running Windows x86 games in ARM Linux for a long time.
theterrasque@infosec.pub 2 weeks ago
It’s using an x86 compatibility layer, pex i think it was called. So apparently you will be running windows x86 games on it.
tal@lemmy.today 2 weeks ago
I think that for running games locally on the Frame, for anything other than games designed specifically to be gentle on a battery — and many games are not, unfortunately — you’re also really going to need to leave it plugged into a powerbank. The internal battery just isn’t that large relative to what the device can draw.
pcgamer.com/…/steam-frame-specs-availability/
BluesF@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Steam/Proton on android would be quite something, I would finally be able to play something decent on my phone that wasn’t originally released for the PS2