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One gamer got so tired of waiting for Valve, he made his own 'Steam Controller 2' out of Steam Deck parts, and it even splits in half like Switch Joy-Cons (www.pcgamer.com)
submitted 1 year ago by to c/games@lemmy.world
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[–] 3 points 1 year ago (16 children)

What's so bad about Steam Controller 1 that it desperately needs a sequel?

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  • [–] 38 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    Mostly just that they're not longer being produced and the second-hand supply is dwindling. Also the bumpers are prone to breaking and a USB-C port would be nice.

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  • [–] 3 points 1 year ago* (1 child)

    Prone?

    Hell, they are almost designed to break. They are utterly shabby in terms of build quality.

    I was one of the early adopters going back to November 2015

    I am not lying when I tell you I have been through 17 of these controllers. It's the right bumper almost every time.

    I have a giant handful of the dongles. I was saving them thinking they would go up in value but now like $2 knockoffs are available LOL

    Edit: the first one I received, out of the box, had a broken face button membrane. The replacement I received had a non-functioning back right paddle. The replacement for that had a non-functioning R shoulder and you could hear the plastic crunching on each press. That's just the first three I received and I'm not counting those in the 17 that I destroyed in my own hands.

    They were built like absolute shit. After the first run got sold and they shored-up manufacturing problems, they got marginally better but the fundamental underlying issue never was solved.

    If it wasn't such a wonderful controller, I would have stomped the first one into powder and never looked back.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago

    Totally fair take. What they lack in durability they more than make up for in ergonomics and control customization features.

    I've got a total of 8 of them with only 2 busted bumpers. I'd say that's not terrible considering they went through 1000+ hours of the Souls series plus Sekiro.

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  • [–] 10 points 1 year ago

    The Deck's controls. The Steam Controller was a bit too drastic of a change for me. It's great for games not designed for a controller but having no D-pad and only a single analog stick is a deal breaker for most people who get a controller to play games designed for controllers.

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  • [–] 7 points 1 year ago
    • It lacks a d-pad
    • It lacks a right thumb stick
    • The thumb stick it has is not capacitive nor drift free
    • It only has one back paddle for each side
    • Ergonomics of the deck are way better, at least for me
    • It lacks the ... button (although this is minor because Steam+a opens the same menu)

    Don't get me wrong, the SC 1 is a great controller, but the Steam deck is better, getting a Steam deck like controller would be awesome.

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  • [–] 6 points 1 year ago (4 children)

    For me, I want one with internal rechargeable (and replaceable) batteries, more reliable Bluetooth, and multi-device targeting (ie those 1,2,3 toggles you see on stuff like mouse/keyboards - I use mine on my Steam Deck and also on my desktop - dont want to mess with pairing each time. Plus if I end up with with a Switch 2, the trackpad would be interesting for mouse mode if those could connect (no idea)).

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  • [–] 3 points 1 year ago (3 children)

    You know you can just chuck rechargeable 2.4V AA batteries in there and it works perfectly, right?

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  • [–] 8 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    Yes but

    • it doesn't let me charge and play at the same time
    • I could hot swap in and out batteries, but it doesn't report battery percentage
    • It also doesn't auto-pause when the battery dies, like other systems do
    • It runs through them quickly
    • it acts finicky/unpredictable when the battery is very low, rather than reaching a consistent threshold and stopping working
    • In combination with a bug/anti-feature I've posted about previously, my Steam Deck sees it as a new controller every time the batteries are replaced, despite the Bluetooth MAC/BDA not changing.
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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago*

    Fair enough. I much prefer swapping them every few hours rather than using a wire, and I haven't had those identification problems you describe. Largely comes down to setup and usage profile it seems.

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  • [–] 3 points 1 year ago*

    Rechargeables get stuck and are waaaay harder to remove than regular because they're just a bit bigger. I have solved this with a loop of sticky tape around the batteries so I got a bit of a pull tab when using them. so it works....but not perfectly

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago (3 children)

    Especially when this is all steam controller 1 parts.

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  • [–] 15 points 1 year ago* (2 children)

    From the article, I believe that it's Steam Deck parts, not Steam Controller 1 parts.

    Which makes sense, because you can get a Steam Deck, but the Steam Controller 1 has been out of production for some years.

    EDIT: Wikipedia says that production ended in 2019.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    You can get them secondhand, that's not the issue. What would be the point of making a Steam controller from Steam controller parts? We already have that.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

    They have mechanical components that will wear out over time (though I suppose some people probably use them lightly enough that it's less of an issue).

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