Even though it hasn’t been announced officially, leaked Beta code suggests that Valve’s Steam Controller is going to get yet another redesign, and the product isn’t even commercially available.
If you want to try out Steam’s Big Picture UI and you think that the Steam Controller is the best way to do it, welcome to the waiting game. Until Valve decides which design is more appropriate for gaming, you’re good to go with any wired or wireless gamepad out there. That’s valid not only if you’re running Steam on Windows, Linux or Mac, but also if you’re one of the brave ones who wants to get a taste of Steam OS.
The images suggesting a new iteration of the Steam Controller were found among the files from this week’s Steam client Beta update. The design itself is a mere update to the versions that were pictured earlier this year. In other words, 1 x analogue stick, 4 x main buttons, and 2 x touch pads don’t really represent a revolutionary type of input.
In an attempt to make PC games more console-like, Valve has first created an UI and then an entire OS around this idea. It has been a while since the Steam OS was first showcased (more than a year, as matter of fact), and gamers are still rocking keyboards and mice. Most of them wouldn’t even conceive playing a game with a controller (PC master race, anyone?), and that must be the reason while no one is crying out of restlessness to get their mittens on the Steam Controller.
In other news, Valve is preparing to lock games to the region they were purchased in. In a move that’s reminding people of region-locked DVDs, Valve forces people to buy games where they live (and if they’re in Europe, they definitely have a good reason to envy gamers from other regions). The way I see it, this looks like some sort of discrimination. Games should be offered at the same price across the globe, and that way publishers wouldn’t have to complain. Impose such restrictions and you’ll find out that more and more gamers turn to piracy to source their games. If you asked me, I’d tell you that Valve is not heading in the right direction…
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