With the steam controller due for release in early 2015 I wanted to have a closer look at what was known about the controller and how it and the steambox with steamOS could impact the marketplace for determining which operating system people choose for thier personal computer systems.
I personally question how the trackpads would operate, because with gaming set up primarilly for use with dual sticks, using swiping actions could become increasingly difficult with many playstyles, and if they have a zone further than the direct center which operates as a click of a button, and how sensitive trackpads are wether this would create further difficulties and alienate players who might get caught up in the action and be a little heavier handed.
One question I forgot to cover is wether or not the pad itself will operate truly as an xbox 360 controller on games which are programmed only to work if they detect an xbox pad directly plugged into the computer, this is a vital question because my previous venom gamepad was on the most part the same control inputs as an xbox 360 gamepad with only one axis on the right stick being incorrect, however this resulted in being unable to play many games as they looked natively for the 360 pad and if this wasn’t present they would not allow the use of a controller in any way shape or form, and you could only then use it via joy2key.
The gamepad itself does come with a native version of joy2key in that it maps to a set of keyboard controls so it can be compatible with games that don’t allow for gamepads and also those with which it wouldn’t be fully compatible, however some games and in particular multiplayer games this could be increasingly problematic, especially if the gamepad does not work in the same way as the xbox controller in that it would port to one of 4 seperate control schemes and wavelengths so everyone had thier own input and could play locally together.
I think it would be a requirement that it enable at least 4 players locally to have thier own control pads for some multiplayer games if it wishes to truly take on other gamepads on the market and be established as a commonly used peripheral. Some paths to the market would be to sell it alongside valve games in the local stores, but considering they haven’t released anything in a while other than free2play content this would be difficult, and wether microsoft games would continue to only support the xbox 360 gamepad when ported to the pc and deliberately alienate the product so it is a useless peripheral or not would cause problems
I hope to be able to get my hands on a steam control pad myself soon so I can put it through some proper testing, and ideally two in order to assess local co-op play also.
Stay tuned to find out.
Also in the video I talk about the steamOS being linux and how this could change the market for operating systems and how the new generation of consoles allow for half life 3 due to the new engines being used to develop games rather than the old source engine most previous valve games were based upon, and how they could also impliment the free2play version of half3life deathmatch in order to continue that monetisation scheme with free to play skins and models for sale and even a plethora of boxes to sell.