Steam Controller

This is the most innovative and exciting controller I have owned. The quality is excellent, the ideas are useful and well chosen, the customization software is great and the fact that it allows a practically endless number of titles previously only playable in the very specific conditions of your PC now to be approached on the couch changes and adds to the experience of those titles. Most interestingly, it is not only a perfect controller, but an excellent input device on its own, and I found myself using it to work on the Unreal Engine Editor, meaning, using it for work on certain tasks and switching them from mouse and keyboard. Lots of devices have targeted that before (for example, the Leap), and none have succeeded. That speaks a lot for this controller. It is necessary to understand what to expect from this controller in order to avoid disappointment: No, it is not a plug-and-play experience. If you are expecting to plug the controller and start playing immediately feeling and upgrade from the xbox controller, then stop, this is not the controller for you. If you are willing to spend a mild amount of time tweaking and changing some options in the customization menu, then you probably are ok. Most of the most popular games already have excellent mapping options prepared by the community and your configuration will only be choosing one and applying it. Well configured, it beats titles with native xbox controller support, and you will have fun. If you want to play games that dont have controller support or that are inimaginable with a controller (for example Civilization) then you are in for a treat and this will be one of your best purchases. Buy right now. Lastly, If you have owned before devices that were intended to be tweaked and personalized to death, and getting into those menus and spending hours making the device work just for you is part of the experience you love and seek, then you will love this controller, and you will appreciate the absurd amount of options there just for you to play with. This is not necessary to use the controller, by the way. You can stay with the community mappings if that's your thing. So, in concussion? This is my new ideal controller, not only for play, but for certain work task that I didn't imagine i would switch to a device like this. I just love it to death. I would recommend it to anyone. It is different to what you are used to, so just try it. But, stay away from it if you: a) dont want to configure anything, just want plug and play, because this is not intended to be, and b) want all your games to play the same with the device, ej, the ease and familiarity that comes with an xbox controller, where you can guess the functionality of all buttons from the go. Here, every one of your games will play different, so you have to kind of relearn to play each game. Think of it like this: It is not the same controller, but a tweaked version for each particular game. I hope this helps to make up your mind. Have fun.

I have been using this controller for 3 months now and let me tell you that it is the MOST AMAZING GAMING CONTROLLER EVER!!! It does take some time to get used to it, but seriously, I have used a lot of game controllers on all consoles, and all kinds on PC but nothing can even near close to what this one can do. I can play literally every single game with it, shooters, platforms, strategy, races, you name it and this controller can handle it. It has so many ways you can configure it that can adapt to any play style you have and one of the best parts is that YOU DON'T EVEN NEED TO BOTHER TO CONFIGURE IT FOR EACH GAME, Steam already have templates and configurations from both the publishers and the community that defaults per game and let you choose from them if you want a different one, or create your own and share it with the world! There is a nice feature that I find it really handy when comes to third person games like "Resident Evil 6" which let you set the borders of the touch areas to keep scrolling with the mouse so you can turn the camera really easily and keep the touch pad precision for aiming. it also has multi modes for every single input individually that can be trigger by any button you define and let you, for example, use a high sensibility setting for the right touch pad when you are just moving and a low sensibility while aiming on shooters, or quickly switch the whole controller configuration for something more comfortable when transform in games like "Strike Suit Zero" by just holding a button. Not enough buttons to match the keyboard keys? No problem, you can use multi modes to get as many button functionality as you need, even the touch pads can be used as a lot of buttons. Strategy games? No problem, you can use the touch pads to navigate, set the controller buttons to the keyboard keys for quick actions and multi modes when the amount of buttons are not enough. Racing games? No problem, you can use the gyroscope for steering similar to what the Wii controller does while using the pressure triggers as pedals. Are you left handed and would love to have a stick on the right? No problem, you can configure the right touch pad to work and feel like a joystick while the left joystick as buttons and the left touch pad as the track pad for the camera. This thing is so freaking adaptive that I started playing all my games from TV and haven't need to use my keyboard for playing games since, even for strategy games like Age of Empires! You can also play non-Steam games with it, therefore, you will need to add that game to your Steam library (which is really easy) and start the game from it in order to take full advantage of it and have access to all it's amazing configurations. Valve really overdid itself this time and brought us the best controller I have used on my whole life.

EDIT THE 2ND: So, it's finally happened. After some 2 months of owning the controller and about a rough 81 hours or so of playing, some constant, some not, the controller is finally giving me low battery warnings. That is absolutely insane for any controller in this day and age and honestly, puts anything made by Sony and Microsoft to shame just for that. And the nicest thing about this fact is that even on the off chance that you do run out, you can still use the USB cable that came with it in order to play just fine. This is the only controller on the market in which you do not have to worry about ever running low. That is a very welcome change in this day and age of wireless. EDIT: Actually I should note one glaring issue with the controller here, though this is more on game developers than Valve for this all things considered: Do be careful when trying to play games that do not come with native simultaneous Keyboard/Gamepad support (anybody that's tried to do this with a Bethesda game will know exactly what I am talking about...), as while the controller can do either or, make sure you configure it to only one or the other, or it will absolutely not work. Again, this isn't a problem with Valve as they have done a lot to make sure that developers can set up this controller no problem, but with developers who, somehow in 2016, still haven't gotten around to that kind of support. So the Steam Controller's been out for a little bit now and at this stage of my ownership of such, I can say I've logged about a good 40 or so hours on this controller thus far. I'd like to take the time to point out some arguments and such in the course of this review. First off, let's get some major dealbreakers that I have with this controller out of the way first: 1. Yeah, you do have to use Big Picture mode in order to fully utilize the controller's functions. This might be annoying for a lot of people who are just trying to play this on their desktop and kinda don't want to deal with Big Picture's interface. There is no way via the normal interface to be able to configure the controller and all of its functions in order to fully customize it your liking. 2. Controller size. Considering that I in particular have GIGANTIC MONSTER CRAB HANDS, this controller is a perfect fit for me, but this may end up being something too large for those with average to small sized hands. There are ways to get around this in terms of the controller's customization options so you can make it slightly more comfortable, but this might be a major turnoff for those who are used to things like the XBone/PS4 controllers. So with that out of the way, I just want to say one thing about whether you should buy this or not: If you're willing to be able to put in the time and effort to be able to get used to the controller and figure out what its configuration options mean, then I can safely guarantee you that you have what is astoundingly the most versatile controller in existence. What do I mean by this? Essentially speaking, if you are willing to figure out how a game you want to play would be maximized in comfort for use with a controller, the Steam Controller's configuration settings are more than you could possibly want for playing that game, even if at first blush it doesn't seem that way. The main feature of the controller, the touch pads, can be set to have a total of /9/ different kinds of input. Whether you want it to look around in an FPS the way a mouse would or you want to quickly maneuver objects and enemies in a Top-down shooter, the touch pads can easily handle it. And if it proves too weird? Just move the configurations around until you find that sweet spot that allows you to use it. And that's just the very surface of what this controller provides. Say you want to get into an old game like System Shock 2? You know, tons of interface, commands, mechanics? This controller can still do that. Through means of mode-shifting and other such options, this controller has amounts of input that easily measure in the good 40 or 50 commands. "But," you may be asking me now, "What if I don't want to spend so time making my own setup for this? I thought the point was to get into a PC game without any interruption or preparation!" Well, that is another strength of the Steam Controller, in particular, Valve's method for providing the community with configurations. Essentially, you can choose from one of a few categories for a setup. Either the Developer's own configuration for the controller, if there is one, some templates that fit a general number of cases (gamepad with FPS mouse, XBone gamepad, stupid amounts of inputs, etc.), and last but certainly not least, the community configurations. These all provide a fantastic starting point to understand what the configuration options do. You are more than able to find a good diving point for being able to understand your new controller. I couldn't possibly write all the different configurations here, but the gist is that if you can think of it, the Steam Controller can handle it in some fashion. Pretty much the only case where it becomes a little trickier to do this are games that are not part of it. Again, it's actually rather painless because you can add non-Steam games and use them in Big Picture mode without much of a hitch, but I have noticed some difficulty in making sure that the controller works the way I want it to. Another praise I have to sing about the controller is the battery life. You remember that some 40 hours I logged in so far? Those are still on THE SAME SET OF BATTERIES that I have started out with. Two AA batteries mind you. That is absolutely insane. Either Valve discovered the secret to energy efficiency (considering all the haptic feedback that this controller provides), or they made a deal with some voodoo elder god to be able to make this possible. And this was all wireless gameplay, I hadn't even touched the cable that they provide you with the controller. The fact that they can do this with just two normal AA batteries should pretty much be a slap in the face to XBone's designs. I can't even imagine the XBone's controller lasting even a fifth that long on a normal basis. Not to say that you even have to use batteries in the first place, as you can use the Steam Controller and all of its features without having a set of batteries plugged in, only using a Micro USB cable if you so desire. This pretty much insures that you have absolutely nothing to worry about in terms of being able to stay in your game for long periods of time. So, what is the point I am trying to make with all this talk? At this time, I would not give it a full five-star rating because some of the glaring issues are still pretty much there, despite all that you can do to make this controller work well with you and make sure that you aren't wrestling with your games over whether or not something works. This really is a thing that you have to get to know very well in order to have a full opinion of whether or not it is for you. Again, if you can put in the time and effort to really get used to the feel of it and get to know this controller, you have what is, bar none, the most versatile controller on the gaming market to date. However, this is if, and only if, you are willing to put the time and effort to gaining a full understanding of it. I know that is a major dealbreaker for most people seeing as one of gaming's central points of focus is just ease of use. If that is something that sounds like it might take too much time for you to get used to, then by all means, stick with an XBone or PS4 controller, nobody is going to fault you for that for wanting to use something that you know is consistent and that you know works very well for you. But, if you truly want something novel and actually innovative to experiment with and actually have a grand old time, making old games seem fresh, making new ones even better, then the Steam Controller can do all that you want, provided you put in the time. If you do want to do that, I have some helpful advice for you: Don't make the first game you play on this controller something like an FPS or an ARPG like Valve advertises. Play some games first that allow you to be able to get used to the layout of the controller with ease and without any hesitation. For instance, I started off by playing things like Batman: Arkham Asylum and Viscera Cleanup Detail. Things like that, where you can play the game at your own pace and figure out what sorts of settings you like for those types of games. As you get more and more used to it, you'll be using the controller to play these games without even thinking about it. I got this controller because I really did need something that was more comfortable to play than mouse and keyboard (bad wrists and everything that comes with it), and at this point I can safely say that I have found that thing. But, please, before going out and saying "augh I don't like it" just borrow a friend's for a little bit and play around with it. I guarantee that having done so, you won't even have thought about how weird something like this is and see the value of these things.

Love this controller, its not like an Xbox controller in terms of feel, which i like xbox the best, but the steam controller is innovative with the track pad, the ability to move left and right in a game as fast as you want rather than waiting for the controller's speed to turn you. thats important! You can also program this controller exactly how you want through steam OS for each game, its insane! I doubt you'll find many Steam controllers on amazon but if you find one from a good seller at a decent price ($50-90)dont hesitate! Super rugged as well!

Possibly the best peripheral I have ever bought for any gaming platform I have ever owned and I have owned a few. Historically I have been a console gamer. Sega 8 bit era all the way to the xbox 360. So I have become very comfortable with all variants of controllers. However I moved to the PC once I was exposed to 1080p 60 fps. So being a noob I built a PC, connected it to my television, hooked an xbox controller up and have been playing on my couch, like the potato that I am, ever since. Unfortunately this setup has a few issues. Older games need quite a bit of tweaking using third party apps. Some don't work no matter what configuration has been laid out. RTS games are impossible to play. Quite a few Top down RPG's are far more elegant when using a mouse and lastly FPS and Third person shooters do not have the accuracy of a mouse. Enter the steam controller. It is incredible just how versatile this 49$ device is. I have become a headshot king in any game that has a cross-hair. This is due to the touchpad/ gyro combination that you can implement on any game. I can now conjure any spell or special attack in my arsenal with the lightest touch of the d-pad. This is thanks to the 18 slot overlay that can be customised to every shortcut on your keyboard. Including maps, inventory, quicksaves etc. I almost never have to touch the axby buttons thanks to the back toggle buttons and the double touch key binding options. Best of all, all these configurations can be perfected with just simple press of the steam home-screen button, which allows instant access to all these incredible features, so you can customise all these settings to your exact preference. Some of the critics have complained that the controller is too alien and does offer enough improvement over previous controllers to justify the heavy learning curve. To that I say: You have not been using this device to its full potential. I have had it for 5 days and only been able to use it after work. In that short amount of time it has become, without question, my first choice for playing all my games. Yes, there is one hell of an interface. And if you are not used to pc gaming it can be quite intimidating. But please take my word for it. One or two hours of playing around with it, as well as utilising the tons of on-line tutorials, it will make so much sense it will become second nature to refine a configuration to your liking. I must confess one thing. I really, really want everyone to buy one of these things. Because if this fails and Steam stop supporting this incredible device I will be stuck with the stock standard controllers and that will be quite tragic. Not only for me but all the gamers out there, like me, who just want to play there damn games on a couch at any angle or position that they can think of. Steam controller for life people. Steam controller for life.

I have to admit that I had high hopes for this controller. My desire was to do exactly what this is intended for, play games from my couch. But after trying it out for a bit I realize it might not be the answer I was looking for. It actually feels pretty good in the hand. I happen to have relatively small hands and I had no trouble holding it. When I switched back to my Xbox 360 controller I even felt as if the Steam Controller somehow had a better feel in the hands than the 360 controller. It also really truly is a plug and play type of device. I had to do a simple update on the remote but it was good to go immediately after that. I went into the configurations almost right away and making changes to the configuration is painless and quick. Perhaps what I loved the most was the fact that the steam button can automatically launch big picture mode. Very convenient. I liked the grip paddle buttons below the remote, really wish more remotes had this option. However, perhaps I jumped into games that I needed more practice with this remote on, but I was completely unable to play the games I tried. I've recently been playing Dying Light and I was simply unable to play it with this remote. The mouse view on the track pad is not bad but it is definitely not as smooth as a joystick. I found myself often "swiping" multiple times to make a complete turn. On a game where you really need to have quick aim changes to make your experience a good one, this simply did not work. This was the same for a game like Insurgency, where you need that accuracy but also that smooth control. For me that is the biggest problem. I can't stand having to "swipe" multiple times on the touchpad to make a complete turn. So maybe this works for other type of players. But I prefer mouse and keyboard for shooters and a good old Xbox gamepad for more casual games.

I've seen a lot of reviews about this controller from people who used the early releases, and there is one thing I want to say to them: "Early Release", there are always slight changes to a product before it is released to the public. Alright, now that that's over with on with the review. I got this controller on Friday, 11/13/15 and it is now 11/15/15 and this is my 2 day review. I have grown to believe that this is a great controller. It has tons of features and buttons and little "hidden" program options. For instance, I can program one of the touch pads act as my mouse with a specific sensitivity, slight actions depending on gestures used on it (like track ball emulation), and inverted axes. There is also a "Mode Shift" option that lets you configure the Touch Pad with completely different settings if you do a soft pull on one of the triggers (or any of multiple other buttons). Example of this: I am weird and when playing a game I control the camera with the X-axis inverted, only if I'm using a controller, however when I go into "aim mode" or look down my scope or whatever, the steam controller lets me switch the Touch Pad to not having the X-axis inverted and to decrease sensitivity. (I apologize if that was a difficult sentence to read) The cool thing is I can actually change the "style of input" completely with this mode shift, so I do a soft hold of a trigger and my mouse turns into a touch menu, or a scroll wheel, or a button pad (Like for going through a menu). Basically there's tons of things that can be done to make this controller work the way you want it. You don't have to program each and every game from scratch, there are 3 templates (by default) and you have access to the community shared configurations created by other people. Sadly I noticed that as of right now it is a little difficult to take your configurations from one game to the next (Like taking configurations from Assassin's Creed II to Brotherhood). Configurations are saved in the following locations: "%ProgramFiles%\Steam\controller_base\templates" is for templates and "%ProgramFiles%\Steam\userdata\%your steam userid%\241100\remote\controller_config\%specific game code%" is for each specific games. You might find it easier to make a configuration a game that is blank or defaulty and name it what the game is to make it easier to figure out the game codes while browsing around. There are tons of buttons on this controller and you can program them in whatever weird ways you want too (they even sound like weird ways to configure them). The 2 triggers are analog as a soft pull, and when you do a full pull it becomes digital, so you can program each as to different things. In addition when programming the analog stick, you can program a specific button press/action if you take the stick all the way to the end. For example, while playing Warframe I have the analog stick configured so that once push it all the way in one direction it hits the Sprint button, than when I do a soft pull on the Right Trigger I go into a crouch/slide, and finally when I finish that pull on the Right Trigger (turning it into a Full Pull) I go into a jump. This makes parkour work amazingly. I've turned holding W and Shift to Sprint, going into a slide by holding Control, and tapping Space to jump, into only using an analog stick and pulling one trigger. Some of the reviewers I've read have mentioned the gyroscope for the controller, and you know what? That's configurable, so don't act like it's forced on you. It's actually really cool and I'm looking forward to using it with the Rift. I haven't used it much but I can actually set it up so that if I'm setting in a spinny chair while holding the controller, and I spin, the my character spins! Now that wouldn't be useful for right now when your trying to play a game using the monitor in front of you, but you don't have to program it like that, maybe your flying and you actually want to "Pull Up!" you could set it up like that. Last week I read a review from someone who fell in love an early release of this controller and compared it to switching from QWERTY to DVORAK. At first I disagreed, but as I've used this controller more I can agree now. I can play these games that I've been playing for years or even a new game very well with a mouse and keyboard, but that's because I'm use to my keyboard. (I can hit most keys on my keyboard without looking at said keyboard). The point is, trying to use the Steam Controller is just like when I tried to switch to DVORAK years ago. I could very easily right now switch back to keyboard and mouse and forget about the $50 I spent on this controller because it isn't instantly easy to use. However, there are so many options that it could actually make my life easier in a lot of ways if I learn how use this controller. Heck, this controller could very well increase my gaming experience. What I'm trying to say is, don't knock it until you've spent the time to try it our properly. This controller has so many configuration possibilities that everyone online could have a different setup even though they're playing the same game. Steam MUST be open to use the controller yes that is true and there's no way to get away from it, but once the controller is working, you can use it as a normal mouse. Steam does not need to be your active program, at least on Windows, no clue on other operating systems. That is one thing that is sad about with this controller. I WISH that there was a plug and play component of this controller that would revert it to specific settings that make it act like a normal controller. D-Pad is just a D-Pad, touch pad acts like an analog stick, to be used as an analog stick, but it's not. That's my one complaint about this controller. All in all, I've fallen in love with this controller. Even though it's only been 2 days of using it...of course I've gamed pretty much all of that time (minus a few hours to sleep). I'm strongly recommending this controller for people to use, but remember this is the first release of this controller, but Valve spent a lot of time designing this there is a reason it wasn't released over year ago. The most important thing to remember about this controller is, programming. Do NOT expect to open up Fallout 4 click some random configuration for the controller and everything to be happy days. Your going to be click that Steam button, go to controller config and be remapping buttons for the first 2 hours of the game. Yes, that makes getting into the game a little tough, but once you get a basic setup for a 1st person shooter, you'll be able to build off that for the next one you play. And I say 2 hours because you'll be going back to make minor changes a lot, you could be playing the game for an hour after your last change and than say "Hey I think it would be better if I did this." OK, I'm finished you can stop reading, get this controller and remember it's completely different from any other controller out there.

I really wanted to like this controller. I got it soon after it came out, mostly to play games on my convertible laptop on the road/while traveling. The draw of the ability to configure it in a myriad of ways was its main selling point - especially for games that didn't have native controller support. My first test of the controller was with Half-Life Source, as a kind of baseline test. I used the controller in WASD+Trackball mode, and after about 5 minutes of tweaking, got a reasonably useful configuration going. Gordon Freeman felt like he was sliding around on ice a bit too much, but it worked. I played for about 20m and moved on once I'd gotten the hang of it. My second game was GTA V. This is where the problems started. I couldn't get my character to move for the longest time (turns out the Xbox App in Windows 10 interferes with the controller - open the app and turn off "Game DVR" to stop that nonsense), and then, I couldn't find a balance of controls that felt remotely controllable. I found myself constantly reverting to the joystick, because the touchpads had no reference points and it was hard to tell just how far you were turning the vehicle from third-person view (first-person view was better, but still not great). After about 2 hours of fiddling with all of the advanced settings for a controller configuration, I closed the game for the night, intending to work on the profile again the next day. Booted up GTA V the next day, and my controller configuration was gone. All of the advanced settings were back to defaults. I sighed, gave up, and ordered the Xbox One controller with the wireless PC dongle. But I wanted to give the Steam Controller one last shot. It looked so nifty, and I'd waited to long for it, and I felt I should give it one more shot. So I took the SC and the Xbox One controller with me on my Thanksgiving vacation to give them a good side-by-side test. And in every instance, the Xbox One controller was plug-and-play, and the SC required 10 minutes of fiddling, even with community profiles. I work in IT and I love fiddling with settings. Customization is something that should always be available to any user. But the fact that you -have- to fiddle with all of the controls for each game separately to get any sort of usable configuration out of it makes it a pain. And the fact that it can only be configured in Big Picture mode for each game independently makes it a huge time investment for each game you want to use it with. I would have liked if I could have my own generic "racing", "RTS", "FPS" profiles that I could blanket apply to any game I fired up. All in all, lovely hardware, but awful software implementation. Bonus gripe : you can't change the default configuration for what it does outside of Steam without modifying .ini files. Which is fine and all, but it just seems surprising, since there are apps like Controller Companion that allow you to do this with Xbox One controllers.