Not “Hall Effect.” “TMR” specifically - it’s an even more advanced version of the magnetic field measurement used for Hall Effect but distinct.

Uses less battery power, too.

I find that trackpad icky. I hate how PlayStation users have been forced to mash the mushy button that it is for the past 10 years.

It’s never lived up to the potential.

Due to the placement its not even remotely comparable, their trackpad is useless for precise aiming or really anything since its that out of the way. At this point it only exists for the few ps4 games that used it.

Yes, THEY do need leaks, not WE. :-)

They don't have the same limitations that you have on a console. Steam input allows you to bind any button to the following things:

• keyboard buttons
• mouse buttons
• controller buttons
• system actions (volume, power, etc.)
• controller actions (controller slot toggle, controller power, action layers)
• steam actions

And probably one of my favorite but underutilized:

• Games can also provide custom actions that show up in the button bind menu, and they can be basic things like "jump" or really bizarre things like "make character think." Games can have built-in action layers as well, so you can bind buttons multiple times for different layers such as "in combat", "in a menu", "dialog", etc. which means you can have contextual actions be different to match your comfort (think PlayStation × vs o regional differences in-menu and in-game where o is confirm in menus but × is the main action button in combat).

The cool thing is, that you can assign the buttons any function. I use RetroArch on my Steam Deck and the back buttons have some special functionality, such as open the RetroArch menu itself or enable / disable fast forward or slow motion. That's good to have, so that all other regular buttons can be used as a regular joypad without changing their functionality.

they have gotten too big and aren't as good. I have the pro 3 and it comes with alternate face buttons which all shattered, and the squish to click toggle on the triggers pops open during use which made me fail the one attempt that was going good at the final ghost boss in GoW:R. Also had the pre hall effect model of the xbox layout controller and the under paddles shattered just being used as jump and interact.

The older snes/sfc style controllers still tank hits like nothing else and will probably outlive me.

There are controllers that offer almost all off this such as hall effects, back buttons, gyro, full remappability, even including a dock and a builtin memory to save settings, just without the touchpads. In example the 8BitDo Ultimate 2 Wireless Controller and it costs only $55.99. I am not saying it is fully equivalent (clearly it isn't, as touchpads are missing and a few little features off course).

The Steam Deck had a European release. Will probably be the same with this one.

Earlier today (or yesterday) the Steam Controller page on Komodo, the official Asian reseller, went accidentally live. I'd say that's a good indicator that they're gearing up for a more or less worldwide release with dedicated shipping centers.