I'm definitely pushing for this to last a long time. The battery is the only thing that concerns me a little. I use rechargeable Eneloops with the original controller, and there's no danger of the AA battery form factor disappearing anytime soon. I'll likely grab a spare battery for the new one eventually just to keep in reserve.

It was a breath of fresh air to see Valve employees on interviews clearly stating "it does and has all these things, if you don't want or need them, don't buy it." Not in the usual corporate entitlement way, but actually a pro consumer rights POV. They are not gonna pressure everyone and their grandmother to buy one, they made a premium tool for their steam machine and are aware of it.

the magnetic sticks are worth the extra cost so there will be no stick drift

It also has a ton of premade layouts already available on launch, as it has feature parity with the steam deck and those profiles will work with the sc.

The fancy joysticks is the only thing I might actually want.

Since nobody has made a controller as reliable as the old wired 360 controller and you can;t get that anymore I'd really like something less prone to stick drift if you give it a funny look.

It‘s almost as if it‘s not for everyone. Just like a $85 mouse or keyboard aren‘t. If you‘re still happily rocking your 10+ year old $20 third party controller alongside your $5 mouse then by all means skip this hardware release, folks.

You know, I don‘t think negative reception with the press means there is a smear campaign going on by default. Maybe they simply chose that headline because drama sells.

But it is interesting if you compare it to their headlines about the Switch 2 a year ago. A lot of sugar coating like „feature packed“ with a vague „but…“ at the end to address Nintendo‘s widely unpopular price policy. That‘s the narrative many tech journalists chose to go with prior to the launch at the time.

For one reason or another a lot of them seem biased to me.

I like your style

People think they have to buy it for some reason, they just can't fathom not being the target audience.

It's the rear buttons,

And the insane customization and re-mapping of buttons/functions/gyro/etc that steam allows you to create that sells me on these controllers.

The only controversial part is that it only works on steam. Which is pretty wild imo. Why would you need more that just the controller's driver for it to work?

I dug out one of my OG Steam Controllers today. I basically got it free with a HEAVILY discounted Steam Link, so I've never really used it.

Turns out that right touch pad is ridiculously sensitive, to the point that it's unusable. So I need to spend some time figuring it out.

If you're using them on a docked Steam Deck, the new controller has a dedicated "..." menu button, so you don't have to get off the couch whenever you need to mess with DeckyLoader

But that D-PAD,

Serious talk, this new steam controller only exists because the old one didn't have a D-Pad, sure, the new touch pads are nicer, but really we are all upgrading our old steam controllers to this one for the d-pad.

Also Xbox controllers have garbage ass build quality. Valve seems to make pretty solid hardware. The only one I see as comparable is the PS5 dualsense controller, but it's still missing some things like the extra buttons. It has a touchpad, but just one, and it's not optimally placed, imho.

we’re lucky this isn’t $120US

£85 GBP is pretty much $120 USD (it's $114).

Not everyone is in us. 99 euro no matter how reasonable prices a lot of Germans out

Last year my wife picked up a pair of regular Xbox pads for us to use when playing couch co-ops over Sunshine/Moonlight. When the pricing for the new Steam controller was announced, she went back and had a look at what she paid. They've gone up in price and are currently £80.

Each.

For an extra £5 you get haptics, touch pads, FAR better stick technology, and all in a package that's as repairable as it can be.

Yeah, £85 is a fucking bargain at this point.

Right? Just compare it to the glued mess that is the $90 Switch 2 controller or to a $200 DualSense pro (or whatever name Sony’s premium controller goes by).

Say what you will but Valve built the Steam Controller to last. I expect the first weeks to be a little bumpy on the software side (as is always the case with controllers) but it will quickly become very future rich. Likely more so than any other controller. And Valve is doing all that with a focus on Linux.

I am not one to easily praise US tech companies and Valve is far from perfect but the Steam Deck has a very good track record and this controller seems like it meets those standards as well.

It‘s a very good deal if repairability, full Linux support and feature richness are what you‘re looking for.

Sorry dude, I'm not paying $100 USD for a controller. The last controller I bought cost me ~$30 USD (GameSir T4 Kaleid) and has everything I need, including hall effect sticks. The steam controller having cool tech like touchpads and a gyro and whatever else is cool I guess, but I don't need or want that. No amount of stuff like that is gonna make me spend that much on a controller.

So yes, the steam controller price raised my eyebrows, in the same way that basically all first-party controllers do. They're all crazily overpriced imo.

Both of the other controllers you listed are already too expensive for what they are. That doesn't really justify the price of the Steam controller imo. This isn't a "pro" controller either. This is the only one Valve offers. Sure it has a lot of good tech and features, but its all stuff they have been putting on the deck for years. I would hardly call the price a steal. I feel like a fair price for a controller like this would have been about $70-80. Not to mention, Valve isn't trying to only sell this to tech enthusiasts. They want this to be a widespread product. $100 for a controller is too steep for an average consumer.

Damn, you really should have. The controller isn't affected by the RAMpocalypse, so people have been suspecting this would end up being released first since the delay was announced. I'm waiting for the Frame most of all, so I'll take your comment as a reminder to not break down and buy another headset early.

250 USD ? In the US, like on Amazon or Best Buy, is that the normal price for an Elite + Tax?

Holy shit. Now I understand why people are defending the SC2 pricing.

I have two Elite 2s, one for my wife and I, was hoping they'd finally last us a long while, nope, within a year both have stick drift and faulty bumpers.

I got a gamesir controller which retails for nearly the same price, but I got it at half price so I'm somewhat OK. I would have been devastated if I had to shell out full price a week before steam controller got on my radar.

My condolences, and may your unfortunate purchase serve it's purpose for long enough to be worth its price and more.

Reselling might be something to consider. Since it's so new you might get a reasonable amount back, and that could help you justify getting this one instead 👍

A standard, official Xbox controller is $85 CAD. This thing is $150. That's almost double. I agree, the features sound great (especially having used the original steam controller, I know how good their touchpads are), but still... Almost double.

Its a normal article with a click bait title. The review seemed to lean on the positive.