Will the Steam Controller Replace Console Gaming?

Background

Valve, a company you might recognize for their online video game store/community Steam, has recently released a new device poised to help PCs compete in the living room. Hello Steam Controller.

The Steam Controller

Two of the most touted "advantages" of PC gaming over console gaming are the number of possibilities you're given with a keyboard and the level of precision you get with a mouse. These "advantages," however, are one of the greatest reasons PCs have historically struggled to appear in the living room. Few people have dedicated a full gaming computer to their living room, and even fewer still find it comfortable to use a mouse and keyboard in this environment.

The challenge for Valve has been to answer these questions: 

1. How do we make a controller versatile enough to play games that were built with a keyboard and mouse in mind? 
2. How do we make this controller comfortable and fun to use?
3. Will that be enough to defeat the console?

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Personal Review

I should preface this review with a little bit about me, so you can understand my perspective. I come very PC-oriented gaming background focused primarily on first person shooters and strategy games. I do not have a ton of experience in sidescrollers, platformers, or brawlers. I also do not have an enormous amount of experience with XBOX/PS consoles/controllers. I will be looking at the controller from a perspective of how easy it is to transition away from a mouse and keyboard.

Dual trackpads - 8/10 - These are undoubtedly the most unique feature of the controller and have proved to have quite a high learning curve. In my experience, the trackpads have been much preferred to joysticks. They are highly configurable and can act as if they were a joy stick (i.e. they will continue to move you if your finger rests on their outer edge). They also offer modes such as a regular mouse trackpad, or a scroll ball. For shooter games, I have found that I prefer to move my character with the analog stick, but manipulate the camera using the right pad as a mouse (with adjustments to make the outer edge continue movement). From a console gamer perspective, my roommate prefers the joystick mode, as the mouse mode can be highly sensitive. For top-down style strategy games, I have found that the scrollball mode is very effective. 

Example configuration of right trackpad in Rocket League

I should point out that there are so many different ways to configure the trackpads I could easily write a who post detailing just that. If you were to purchase a Steam controller, you might find yourself spending quite some time toying around with options.

HD haptics - 8/10 - Haptic feedback is something Valve has been chatting about for quite some time now. The idea here is that any sensory feedback we get from using a joystick or scrollwheel can be emulated using finely tuned vibrations. Overall, I'm quite impressed with what they have down with this. The vibrations really do make it feel like you're using the device you're emulating on the trackpads. My only criticism here is the level of noise you get when you turn up the strength of vibration. It can be somewhat distracting. 

Analog stick - 5/10 - The analog joystick is a little frustrating to see on the controller. While it's of equal quality to what you see on an XBOX One or PS4 controller, it's usefulness only exists as a crutch for people who are used to controller gaming. From my perspective, I would have preferred to use the left trackpad to emulate a stick and replace the analog stick with a directional pad. Of course the control mapping can be changed to create a similar effect, but it the analog stick lacks the tactile quality you get from a set of buttons. 

Perhaps this would have been more highly ranked in my review if Valve had not previously teased a controller that had this alternate layout.

Dual-stage triggers - 10/10 - These are great. For those of you familiar with the perfection that was the Nintendo Gamecube controller, you might be pleased to experience these. Dual-stage triggers work such that any pull on the triggers will cause an action, and then fully depressing the trigger will cause another action. The best example I have of this is a first person shooter where you would slightly pull the trigger to aim down sights, and then fully depress the trigger to fire. As with everything, this is highly configurable, but works well without much tweaking. Naturally if you are not a fan of the two stage trigger, you can always map each stage to perform the same action.

Gyroscope and accelerometer sensors -  7/10 - Gyroscopic input in the controller is something I've struggled to find a use for. Don't get me wrong, it's smooth as can be and really provides some of the best motion control I've seen in any system; however, it's just not that useful to me. Perhaps I need to delve deeper into racing games in order to see its benefit, but even then I question its utility. Buttons and sticks are inherently better for control even in racing games. Think Mario Kart. People fight to get a controller rather than using the Wii wheel shoved in the back of the video game cabinet. 

Perhaps the inclusion of the motion control is foreshadowing for use with SteamVR...?

Configurable controls - 6/10 - I've touched on these briefly a couple times now, but haven't really explained my thoughts on them. The Steam Controller is easily the most customizable device I have ever seen. Nearly anything you want you can make the controller do. You can even add shifting buttons that when pressed will allow almost every button on the controller to do something completely different. That being said, the menus for configuring the controller are very complex. Many of the options for configuration are poorly labeled and poorly explained when try to decipher their descriptions. It takes a long time to figure out exactly what you want your controller to do. 

It is also worth mentioning that mapping your controller buttons differently does not necessarily let the game you're playing know that the change has been made. For example the game might prompt you to "press A to jump," however, you might have mapped right paddle to this control. If you aren't thinking about or can't remember your mappings, you might find yourself mashing A like it says, confused as to why you're not jumping.

Valve was gracious enough to include a set of control options you can select from, those being controller specs recommended by the developer, a set of basic layouts created by Valve, or any controller layouts designed by the community. Community controller layouts are probably the most interesting of the three. 

Steam Community Configurations for Rocket League

The ability to select from a list of control mappings that have already been built by community members is incredibly useful for those of us who just don't feel like fiddling around with controls for an hour. My criticisms here though are that the names and descriptions of the community options often fail to provide enough information about how that specific setup works. Additionally, I would love to see a way to rate controller configs to make it easier to pick from the list.

Overall, the controller gets a 6/10 for configurability, not because it's not configurable, but because it's so much work to figure out exactly how you want to go about configuring it. I think few people will have the patience to deal with that.

Local multiplayer capability, as supported by games - 5/10 - This is the one thing that I really want to see take off. And I really feel like it must take off in order for the Steam Controller to compete with console gaming. Traditionally, PC multiplayer has meant only one player per PC and playing together would mean having each person bring a PC. Many of the great games on the Steam catalog have followed this model, but I'm hoping for that to change. While this is listed as a feature of the Steam Controller, it's actually a feature completely under the control of game developers. In recent years we have seen local multiplayer grow only slowly in the PC game market. I also feel that game developers should go beyond integrating splitscreen play into PC games, but also integrating multi-display support so that people can view their game play on a unique screen (goodbye screencheaters!).

Wired or wireless - 10/10 - I think this is on par with every other controller in the market. One unique feature to the Steam Controller is that it is bundled with a USB extension cable that could be used to extend your wireless range by several feet. I have had no range problems with my Steam Controller over a distance of a few feet and through a wall. Valve claims roughly 5 meters of range.

Battery placement in the Steam Controller

AA Batteries - 10/10 - I know this sounds like a weird thing to review, but I do appreciate what Valve has done with the batteries. I feel that batter packs are prone to failure and often times lead to weird connection problems, as exemplified by the 360 controller. The Steam Controller, however, uses two traditional AA batteries, meaning you're free to use rechargeable batteries if you'd like, but you aren't restricted to a pack that could be lost/broken. Valve estimates roughly 80 hours of gameplay from a pair of batteries. After a couple weeks now, mine are still alive and kicking.

Additionally, rather than being placed in the middle of the controller, one battery is located in each palm grip. This give controller a better overall weight distribution and helps it feel a little more solidly built.

Overall Rating - 7.5/10 - This is a device for PC gamers who want flexibility and customization. That is exactly what it delivers, even at the cost of ease of use. Those who are used to a XBOX/PS controller may find it just as simple to plug their old controller in and stick to what they've always known.

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Conclusions

Q: Did Valve make a controller versatile enough to play games that were built with a keyboard and mouse in mind? 

A: Yes. While nothing will ever exactly match the precision of a mouse, this controller comes darn close. And by simply adding the ability to finely tune buttons, the Steam Controller is able to create just about as many useful inputs as a keyboard. As a testament to how well the controller does in this situation, I actually found Civilization V - a game I couldn't imagine playing on a console - to be quite enjoyable on the Steam Controller. 

Q: Did Valve make this controller comfortable and fun to use?

A: Sorta. The controller feels pretty good. It has a good weight distribution; it has incredible haptic feedback; it doesn't hurt after long periods of gameplay. It does however feel just a little plastic-y right out of the box, and the A-B-X-Y buttons are every so slightly too far over for me (I do have small hands, though). These things, however, I would say are forgivable. What truly drags the pleasure of use down is the complexity of the configuration menus. I believe that this is the single greatest point of failure for the controller and will greatly hinder its adoption. The large majority of people will be unwilling to rework their controls for each game they want to play. Further, the community made configurations which would answer this problem need more tweaking in order to completely resolve the issue.

Q: Will the Steam Controller be enough to defeat the console?

A: Probably not. While the controller alone is a great device, it lacks a certain sense of completeness. I believe the gaming console will only be defeated by Steam once the following things happen:

• A well-priced device becomes capable of delivering the full PC experience to the TV. (Currently the Steam Link is the best solution for those who already have an ultra powerful gaming PC, but it lacks luster if you don't have the ideal setup. Read more here.)
• Game developers actively produce local multipayer games for PC
• Steam Machines become useful or go away (Currently they run SteamOS, a flavor of Linux. This means without extra work, they are unable to play Windows based games. This stands as a direct obstacle for developers. Additionally, many developers may also choose to neglect SteamOS due to the rocky, delayed start we have seen for most Steam Machines.)
• Microsoft doesn't beat Valve to the punch. (Microsoft has been working on much higher levels of integration between Windows 10 and the XBOX One. It is entirely conceivable that they will use these changes to take hold of the PC gaming industry by allowing PCs to act as XBOXs, and vice-versa.)

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Orders

Those who signed up for an early preorder have been receiving their controllers since October 13, while the bulk of preorders will be delivered starting November 10. 
Any orders placed now, you should expect to see in your box in early December. If you would like to read a bit more about the technical specifications of the controller or purchase one for yourself, check out the controller on the Steam Store.