It was also much less appealing with the touchpads replacing a thumbstick and dpad, instead of being in addition to them.

I think there's a lot of factors for the lackluster performance of the OG steam controller, ranging from the build quality, to the unconventional/niche layout, and the lack of knowledge/maturity for systems like steam input

Given how many factors have changed from 2015 I think valve should have expected the sales numbers to be a lot higher than they did :3

The heavily touchpad based design was also just more radical than people were willing to accept. It forced you to adapt to a totally different control paradigm, and took a lot of time to get used to. I liked mine, but I can see why people may have bounced off of it pretty hard.

The new Steam Controller is kind of halfway between a traditional modern controller and the old SC, so it strikes a nice balance.

I don't think marketing was the problem, the lack of joysticks was a problem though for many.

PC gaming/Steam seems to be a lot more popular today than it was in 2015. Back then we didn't have the scalper problem as bad as we have now either. Everybody I knew back then was using an xbox 360 wired controller, which I still think was one of the best controllers ever.

Now that every game page on steam shows controller support and the deck exists we've had a ton of focus on good or at least mostly functional controller controls in loads of games which never would have had it in the past.

I really want the new one, but I ended up in the 2027 end of the estimated delivery lol