Phoronix article: https://www.phoronix.com/news/Steam-Machines-Frame-2026
Also listed here: https://store.steampowered.com/sale/hardware
Valve has already sent support for the new Steam Controller upstream: https://www.phoronix.com/news/New-Steam-Controller-SDL
Ah yes, the gabecube
Me in 2001 with a stuffed nose:
Stuffed because that cute person didn’t like me back cause they were busy blowing all their inheritance from their estranged uncle that died when the towers fell.
Oddly specific, but ok.
I was talking about the release of the GameCube 😬
Steam Deck was the Gabe Gear, this is the Gabecube, all we need now is a smaller Steam Deck - the Gabe Boy.
Well, you do have the Gabe Virtual Boy.
They really need to sell these in Walmart next to the Playstation. It’ll be the year of the Linux desktop!
I am European but no. That would increase the price and i believe valve wants to sell as cheap as possible.
I thought it was the okama gabe sphere. It’s spherical!
The VR headset is going to be standalone??
That’s pretty nuts right?
even more nuts is that it will support pc games via FEX, an emulation layer that runs x86 windows games on ARM in Linux
In addition to streaming from your battlestation
Crazy…
But does it have a crazy price?
Im guessing Vive prices. Id be suprised at less than 1k, but no word on it yet.
Valve said they expect it to be cheaper than the Index, so it shouldn’t be more than 1k
Frankly it all three are logical next steps. With the way windows is going, valve needs to decouple it’s store from the windows dependency. The deck was the tester, now we get the not so cheep next generation
I just want them to let me isolate Anticheat BS like the virus it is. All of these hostile Game Studios are full of shit for forcing it. Not happy with BF6 over it still.
I mean, that was the goal of the original steam machines from 2012 or whatever
I’m sure they’ll be as aggressive with price as the Steam Deck was. The tiny battery and knuckles hand tracking being an optional accessory this time suggest that.
Any ideas on Linux support?
They talked about streaming VR games from the SteamOS based steam machine to it.
So with that I’d assume we’re finally getting some much needed progress to SteamVR on linux.
Yeah, this is what I’m most looking forward to in the immediate sense tbh. It’ll be nice to play HLA without crashing every time it loads a new level as it currrently does for me in SteamVR (Monado doesn’t have this issue, but I can’t use my left-handed controls without Steam input :-|)
The headset itself is running linux and it is meant to be used with the steam machine, which also runs on linux.
pretty sure it’s SteamOS, an Arch Linux derivative, on a fairly popular Snapdragon platform. probably not too difficult to hack on it.
It days right in the marketing text that the headset is “a PC” which to me implies full SteamOS distro with no limitations on installing a different OS, if you can get the many hardware drivers to work.
It says that it can run Windows applications so it might be the first VR headset that you can actually develop a game on.
My understanding from the video is that the headset will run SteamOS itself.
There are a lot of specs missing from what the streets were hoping for from the holy grail of VR headsets, but I’m starting to believe that they are not going for that. It seems they want to win in the mid-range market competing directly with Meta. Honestly, “Quest 3 without Meta” is already very compelling. I guess it’s not all down to how competitively they decide to price it. “Cheaper than Index” is already good news for my wallet at least.
I believe the cost of Meta devices is also subsidized by surveillance capitalism, so if this costs more, doesn’t spy on you, and lets you do whatever you want with your own hardware, then it’s worth voting with your wallet. If Valve somehow is able to price this similarly to a Quest 3 while having better specs and without exploiting their customers like Meta does, then all hail the great and mighty Gabe.
Personal privacy is always worth the cost. The ‘subsidies’ can go away anytime, so better to not be locked into an expensive spyware platform to begin with.
”Quest 3 without Meta” is what I’ve been dreaming about. I feel like Steam Frame could be my entry to the VR space, if the price is decent.
I just recently upgraded from my OG Vive because I didn’t want an inside out tracking or wireless, but… let’s see what the price is and if the thing is actually as good in real world conditions as Linus makes it look. I might just try those pancake lenses (because the Vive Pro 2 lenses are bad).
And yeah, I will never give Meta money. Not directly, and indirectly as little as I can.
I don’t see it in the hardware design, but from a software perspective the groundwork is there for modularity. Offloading the core compute to the PC frees up onboard processing to run peripherals like full color front cameras (onboard are black and white / IR) and more advance proximity detection, hell hook up lidar and go nuts with full body tracking.
That said, all of that would depend on decent I/O. 2x USB4 ports would go a long way.
Welp, looky there, an expansion port right on the bridge of the headset with PCIE compatibility.
I used to work with a guy who worked at Valve prototyping stuff like the steam controller. He was a boomer so he complained about how people were always playing games in the break room and what not. Said he hated that job, his reasons might as well have been a wishlist for my future career. If he wasn’t so damn helpful I would probably hate him to this day.
Fuck you Microsoft!
Less concurrent is never a good thing. Steam already got too much power. https://www.xda-developers.com/valve-steam-monopoly-real-gamers-chose/
Luckily unlike monopolies in other sectors, Steam doesn’t involve itself in evil oractices that more or less stops others from competing.
Someone just needs to make a better store, but they can’t because no company big enough to compete is willing to be as user friendly.
Epic, probably the second biggest store people thing about, can’t even make a good platform. They try underhanded practices like bribing developers and customers… maybe they should make their store work properly first.
I’m rabidly pro-consumer about most things but I struggle with how we define a market when we talk about steam. In order for steam to be a monopoly you have to drill down through super categories of software sales and then video game sales, to the platform level.
If you look at all digital delivery video game sales they still don’t have a monopoly. You don’t have to deal with steam to play a video game. It’s only PC video game sales where they are close to a controlling market share.
But Steam has far less power over PC gaming than Apple, Sony, or Nintendo do over their respective platforms. Gamers and Devs basically HAVE to deal with those companies to have access to their markets.
And even then, most games are available on multiple platforms, for similar prices. So you can get the same game from Steam, GOG, or EGS in many cases, plus all of the stores that sell Steam keys (and Steam probably doesn’t get a cut of those sales).
Yeah, and if Microsoft suddenly decides they want to shut Steam out then there’s not much Steam can do other than take them to court. And even if Steam exited Windows there’s still lot of popular publishers putting out Windows only games like Valorant, Battlefield 6, Fortnite, Genshin Impact, and popular software like Adobe that would lead to losing a significant chunk of the userbase that would not move to Linux due to games and software they use not being on Windows.
Another launcher whether it is Microsoft or Epic or whatever would just fill the void for third party titles and probably be glad that the main competition is banished.
So this market share situation is not quite like Sony, Nintendo, iOS, or Google who not only run a locked down OS but also are the monopoly and sometimes only storefront.
Google recently shifted to wanting to gatekeep what can be installed and wanting verification from even devs that don’t want to release on the play store, which threatens viability of alternative app repositories like F-droid. Which is what could happen to Steam if Windows suddenly decided to change their minds about how open they’ve been in allowing program installations.
So Steam situation despite their popularity is still reliant on Microsoft not turning into a bad actor. They are more Netflix. The go to choice in their segment, but can be replaced.
Also, public companies can’t make good products because they don’t have long term vision. They don’t have long term vision because they need to have good short term profits and profit margins. Look at Xbox eating itself just because they need to have a 30% profit margin right now!
Yet
Yet, unlike other sectors yet.
High chances that this changes. Monopolies are built friendly and get enshitificated later, one baby step at a time.
Market will get harder and harder to join as studios optimise their processes for releases on steam and users get even more trained Games -> Steam.
Especially when Steam manages to kill PS and Xbox, where I see big potential that this happens.
That’s always a possibility, but if it was going to happen, it would have already by now.
It’s very obvious to me that Valves leadership cares about the end goal of making gaming accessible and as easy as possible for everyone.
If they ever become evil, I feel it’s guaranteed to be because of leadership change to someone who is secretly corrupt, we just have to hope the reigns are handed down to someone good.
And if they do become evil and their product suffert as a result, they are going to create an opening for the others to fill.
The market gets harder to join as Steam makes their platform better and better. This is very very good compared to other companies that get to the top and then add physical and legal barries to others to stop them becoming competition.
Xbox has killed itself and I can’t see Playstation going anywhere anytime soon. Steam machines could take some tiny % of Playstation users, but if they do, the users stolen might have been people who wanted to swap to PC anyway. + you can access other stores on a steam machine
But it is exactly the same as with monarchies:
There are some good ones, until there is one evil, and then you can’t do really something against it except whining.
Allowing monopolies is like allowing a dictator to rule in my eyes.
The difference is that a monarchy usually rules over everything and has the last say.
Steam is a monopoly only because every competitor has tried but failed to make a new compelling service.
Steam does have the last say within their platform (usually it’s the correct say), but they don’t disallow competition by lobbying or with other anti-competitive practices.
Some company just has to make a better service.
It’s not impossible, just no one wants to do it because they can’t make bajillions like they usually do in their other sectors where they can freely abuse the customer because there isn’t someone like Steam looking out for them.
So I agree with you, but someone must make a better service before the pc gaming marketplace marketshare can be more evenly distributed, but no one will or has. But keep in mind that Steam isn’t doing anything illegal and by no means should they forcefully be separated or anything by the government (they are not an illegal monopoly like google for example, they are simply a monopoly because they make the best service and no one is competing).
Monarchy only works because every competitor who tries to change something has failed.
Monarchies would as well not have been established, if they where not making better services than competitors, and when they reached power the got out of control.
Same will happen to steam, it is just how things are, it is just a matter of time, until centralised power gets abused.
Our legal framework does not protect us from this, most monopolies are not illegal in current law.
The current state of capitalism is that companies try to get good brand recognition to get support and establish their monopol position, ant then, the enshitification starts slowly.
Back to the monarchy similarity: Most monarchs had great support at the beginning or even for generations until that power gets abused.
If we have no tools against an entity that can abuse power, we have to establish those tools while we don’t need them, or it gets very hard to do something against it when it happens.
As a Mac user with an Xbox, this thing looks like a breath of fresh air! My Xbox (Series X) is still running well, so I continue to use it, but I kinda want this Steam cube thing, if the price is right. I don’t want to buy any more products from Microsoft, and while I tolerate Xbox, I do not like Windows. (I tolerate it at work because I have to, but I’d prefer not to have to mess with it.) I could hang with Linux if I wanted to go down that road, but it looks like this will be a suitable alternative for gaming… if the price is right.
Steve from Gamers Nexus has a solid video where he met with people about Valve and goes into a lot of details on the announced hardware. He reported that they told him that the Steam Machine is not aiming for a console price. This made sense to him as he pointed out it’s basically an ITX computer and you can do computer things with it. Anyway I don’t know what it will cost but I’m guessing north of $500 easily.
I’m in a similar boat. I have both PS5 and series X. Consoles are getting enshittified at an increasing pace. I welcome valve improving Linux compatibility as they invest more in their devices. I don’t think I’ll be getting Sony or Microsoft’s next consoles.
Same. I have a PS5 and a switch, both that I hardly use now.
I’ve been an Xbox user for the longest time and have been dreading them losing the latest console war. I’ve never been a huge Nintendo fan, and fuck Sony. This sounds like it’ll be my next big gaming platform.
There isn’t really any point in comparing this to a games console. There would be no real point valve developing a console because pretty much all of the games on their platform expect to run on a PC so they’d end up having to emulate keyboard inputs as a lot of their library won’t really work with a controller in any logical sense, so they might as well just make a PC.
Have you, uh, seen steam input and the new controller with the touch pads? It sounds like you haven’t…
They missed the chance to call the machine the Steam Engine
I thought the GabeCube was even better.
Aaaaalmost shot coffee out my nose. Almost.
But they did name it after a daft punk song
banger
Huh, neat. Til.
Fuck, they did! 😫
2026 Year of the Linux desktop?
Surely this will bring over a lot of people to Linux
Year of the Linux living room
Not gonna lie the controller looks ass but maybe it feels fantastic so I‘ll wait with my final judgement. I‘m interested to see how they will try to push VR since most users are still incredibly uninterested in it.
I’ve wanted to get into VR for the longest time but they all seemed like extremely walled gardens. This sounds awesome to me.
The problem is to really make an informed decision you have to try it first-hand. The sensory experience unlike any other device, so descriptions aren’t super helpful, video doesn’t convey what it’s actually like, so you really have to experience it to understand it.
Also given how common it seems to be anecdotally to get sick from it, no one wants to jump in just to have to jump back out.
And unless you know someone that already jumped in and can try theirs, a lot of people like me just don’t want to commit sight unseen. (I mean I’m also broke, but this would be true anyway)
I don’t have a way to try it out, so until I do it’s not on my radar to care. I’m very curious about it. Even if I don’t like it I do really want to see what it’s like at least once. But I’m not gonna pay for that chance. It’s gotta impress me without effort on my part (more than driving to it anyway).
Also given how common it seems to be anecdotally to get sick from it, no one wants to jump in just to have to jump back out.
you can build a resistance to it. It takes time, and it was the case for me
Maybe so, but you probably need to enjoy your first exposure to want to drop money on an entire setup for it.
It’s already crazy enough to drop that money just hoping you like it, but if you drop it hoping it stops making you nauseous, that’s a much bigger ask.
I’m still hoping I won’t have that problem. I do get car sick on meandering drives, but not even close to as bad as I did 10-15 years ago, but the worse the drive gets, the more I have to stay staring out the car windows.
I assume the VR effect would be similar, given it’s a similar symptom, but backwards. (In VR you don’t feel motion, but you see it, whereas in a car, you feel it, but either don’t see it from not looking, or if you have wide visibility it looks like you’re not moving as much compared to the background)
As someone who used to get sick in cars and boats, I got it, so you might as well
If the technology interests you, then sick or not, you’ll probably like it. Won’t play every day, but it’ll be a nice experience.
Start with games with not a lot of motion (beat saber for example), then move to more intensive games. You’ll get sick after 15mins, then 20mins, then 25… until you last for a couple hours, and at this point you’ve built your resistance.
Just stop playing when you feel sick and try again an hour later when you feel better or a few days later
But yea, VR isn’t straightforward or an obvious purchase. It requires time and will, and money, obviously
It’s clearly a luxury and you need to have too much money or be really motivated to purchase it
Personally that’s what I’d like to do anyway. I’m saying that to discuss the growth of the technology among the masses.
Assuming it doesn’t make me violently ill, i like tech and gaming enough to keep it around otherwise. But the potential for the issue and the committal involved off the bat are difficulties for any new, different-enough tech.
I’m someone who has gotten sick in cars before (rarely) but I have done a lot of crazy stuff on VR and never felt remotely sick. I’m an outlier though
For most of my life VR has been, ‘VR is a great way to experience shitty games and you just have to pay a grand or more for this interactive tummy ache, and your unit may not be supported next year! Buy!’
I’m going to hold out until I can pick up one of these at the pawn shop for a bill.
I got an Index for cheap last year and was very excited to play a number of my favorite games with optional VR mode. Turns out:
- the Index ecosystem is more accessible than expected. 2) the games I was looking forward to all played like ass and made VR seem like a stupid gimmick. 3) In a desperate move that felt like sunk cost fallacy, I tried several VR-only games, and got TOTALLY hooked on modded Beatsaber. This itself made the buy-in worth it.
VR-only games
For the most part VR “ports” of traditional games are not worth buying. The developers usually put 0 effort into them. There are exceptions like sim racing titles, but for the most part games developed specifically for VR will be way better designed
‘VR is a great way to experience shitty games
Have you tried Half-life: Alyx?
I recommend you give that, or something equivalent, a go without even buying any hardware. Either ask a friend or go to an arcade. You don’t need to shell out a grand to try.
If you hate it, move on.
Edit! I’m a 90s kid, and I’m really disappointed that VR hasn’t taken off the way scifi suggested it would. Back then, being absorbed in pure information sounded awesome, but now it is just going the way of 24/7 misinformation advertisements and micro transactions.
I’ll hold off on VR until there is a decent open source unit that isnt $800.
I remember trying the first VR headset game 1990 that ran on a Commodore Amiga in like 7 fps and was terrible in every way.
Yegods. My first foray into VR was at a high end arcade at North Pier in Chicago. I think the game was Dactyl. The headset was super heavy and none of the goals of the game were explained to me. I basically wandered around for five minutes, shooting green polygons in the sky, then time was up.
Dad was pissed that he’d blown $20 on it.
Edit: For historical reference, in the mid 90s $5 could keep your kids occupied at a regular arcade for a couple hours. $20 could have gotten us a couple of movie tickets and some Twizzlers.
I’d of been angry too.
I think that’s the same game I queued up for like 90 mins at a computer fair to have a few minutes of very confused playtime and that was it.
I remember seeing the Virtuality kits on TV in the 90s.
Clearly absolutely unplayable nonsense, and yet I still wanted to play on one.
It took so long for hardware to catch up.
I’ve got a Meta Quest 2 as a hand-me-down and yes, it’s extremely locked down. It’s possible to use a third-party app store, but to make it work you have to get a developer account with Meta and enable wireless debugging.
I also recieved a quest 2 recently, any good guides on getting it set up with third party apps that you found?
I haven’t tried it myself yet, but I hear the SideQuest app store is the place to go.
I really want to love VR, but it’s just not for me. And i don’t think i’m alone with that. To me, VR is something you try in a mall for 20min and think it’s cool and not something you want to play around with home.
There’s a reason we don’t see any big Let’s Players do more than a couple episodes of VR games.
That doesn’t mean they’re not having fun, but it’s quite physically demanding and the experience just doesn’t translate to 2D.
I love Half life alyx. I played maybe half an hour, and i don’t think i’ll ever play more. Just the thought of putting the vr headset back on puts me off. I thought VR would be great for me, because i do a lot of sports anyway and i like to move around. But sweating while playing video games isn’t as fun as it seems. Especially when you sweat a lot in and around the goggles. Like i said, it’s an experience, not really more. On a side note, i also learned i’m a huuuge pussy when it comes to VR games. I really don’t know what it is, i was never scared of a movie or video game or anything really. In vr looking into a dark hole where something might jump scare me, really isn’t for me at all.
Fortunately I don’t sweat that easily, Alyx was fine for me so far (about 2 hours in). What REALLY gets me going is (modded) Beatsaber. I can only play it wearing briefs and it’s a serious workout if you want to challenge yourself, but it’s so much fun that I’ve managed a few play sessions that lasted for over 3 hours.
I mean, you can certainly pick up a used Quest 2 if you wanted to try it out. There’s a handful of exclusive stuff in the Quest store you’d be able to use, but not much of value. Resident Evil 4 VR is about it for the Q2. I think there was a Batman game for the Q3. You’d have access to anything the Steam Frame has access to if you’re streaming from a PC.
I think the PSVR2 works as well, but it’s wired only.
Half Life Alyx is certainly worth a blast through.
Stories like Ftumch’s reply, and the fact that it’s owned by Meta 🤮 have deterred me from wanting to try that one.
Looks can be deceiving. Coming from someone who uses the steamdeck, that layout looks exactly how I hoped and imagined it would be. The steamdeck is incredibly comfortable to hold and this looks like it would be the same!
It definitely reminds me of that Steam controller someone on Youtube built by sawing a Steamdeck in two and gluing the ends together so to speak. They said it‘s their dream controller so I‘m sure this controller already has some fans. I just can‘t tell by looking at it.
The first controller looked the same, but was very good to use once you got used to it. The build quality, though, was…fucking terrible.
I had to fix my controllers so many times that in the end I was swapping them out almost weekly. Still, felt great in the hand.
I have the first controller, just dug it out the other day because I thought I was going to be able to use it on my new tablet, it still sucks. I never could get used to it, but it’s a far sight better looking then this thing.
It might be you just got unlucky. Mine is still going strong all this years, and I use it often.
It’s basically steam deck minus the screen. If you are used to the steam deck it’ll be fine.
Hopefully the Frames can compete with the Meta Quest in both price/performance. It will be good to have relatively affordable VR headset not made by Facebook.
Considering that Quest is sold at a loss and tries to make money forcing you to buy games, I don’t think it’s likely
@MoonlitSanguine@lemmy.zip @jcs@lemmy.world it would certainly be good for it to be relatively affordable but they’re really not promising it will at the moment since they only said aiming it to be cheaper than an Index.
Wish I didnt have to wear glasses, otherwise I’d use my Index alot more.
Inserts?
It will be priced as it isnt locking you into a ecosystem like meta, so it will be of course a bit more pricey. ( rumors say roughly 1200$ )
Valve really listened to Saejima’s advice:
Steam Synapse when?
I don’t like the look of this controller… I’m still gonna get one. Everything else I love.
Especially that SteamOS is apparently going to become available on ARM devices.
Arch linux ARM (the base of such steam os) has existed for a while now. Not to diminish Valve efforts, just putting in some context.
Fex works for most games now! This is amazing.
And now there are arm systems that are powerful enough to compete with consoles easily (consoles probably already using ARM?)
I’m running it on my raspi but it seems like the repos have been frozen for a while now?
Same, but at least it feels like the focus was on usability rather than looks. Keep it humble, Steam!
I do appreciate that the grips are flared out at least a little on this controller. The 90° ones on the Steam Deck can be quite uncomfortable, especially given that it’s a pretty heavy and cumbersome device.
My biggest skepticism is the dpad though. It looks nearly identical to the Steam Deck’s, which is easily one of the worst dpads I’ve ever used. Hopefully the underlying mechanisms and feel of it has been improved.
Finally, another worthwhile controller with symmetrical sticks. Now to find out how to get my hands on one…
I typically just have one hand on each side
That usb port being off center though…
I did notice that in this picture, but I don’t think it actually is. Pretty sure this is from the “animation” where the puck with the USB cable is put under the controller to charge, and not with the USB cable connected to the controller. From what I see though it should all be centered, even the puck and charging pins, so not sure why they made it off-center here
This will invoke someone’s OCD
There’s plenty of videos of it on YouTube and the port is not off centre.
That controller looks ugly and bulky as fuck.
Well thank God I don’t give a shit how my controller looks as long as it is well designed.
Alphagrip has entered the chat
Actually, not sure how well it works. But it certainly looks very odd
I mean you will care if it doesn’t fit well in your hand and is too bulky. I mean that was the issue with the Xbox controller and still is issue with the Xbox controller for anybody with smaller hands I know the Japanese market had quite a stir regarding that. And this thing looks like it’s twice as thick as the Xbox controller. It reminds me of some of the old third party PC controllers that I used to have back in the 90s and early 2000s. In fact I had one that if you were to round off the top of this thing looked almost exactly like it.
As someone with hands on the larger side, small controllers suck for us too.
The point you should be focused on is having a diversity in controller options, not that any one controller is good/bad.
It is entirely subjective to say the controller is good. Your definition of good won’t be my definition of good. Your taste and opinion is just as valid as mine, and I don’t impose my preferences on you.
I don’t know how big that controller is, since no banana was provided for scale. It could be huge and unwieldy, or it could be very tiny. One size never fits all.
At the end of the day, if you don’t like it, don’t buy it, and/or don’t use it. This is +1 option in the controller space, and that kind of competition is good no matter what opinion you have.
As someone also with large hands, I still love well designed controllers that fit well for smaller hands - like the classic Dualshock 2 controller. I used one again pretty recently. Had to stop because the analogs were virtually useless, but the smallness of the controller stood out to me because after enough time playing a game I noticed I could more easily forget the controller itself and focus on the game (except those damn broken sticks).
When I went back to the DualSense, it felt clunky and unwieldy by comparison. I feel bad for gamers with small hands, because all the standard controllers must be monstrous for a lot of people. No wonder mobile gaming gained so much traction - game companies forgot that kids play games too.
I’m not sure what the standard for large vs small hands is, but I haven’t had issues with pretty much any controller except the OG Xbox controller:
My kids have no issues with either the Xbox 360 controller or DS4 controller that I have.
I would call it less of an issue (at least in my case), and more of something that became apparent only after going back and experiencing the smaller controller to compare others to.
I really wish there were a modernized controller in the exact form factor of the classic ds2. Like if it had tmr sticks and a better dpad, but was still a wired controller and had 4 shoulder buttons instead of two triggers. Don’t get me wrong, triggers have their place, but there are some games that work better with all buttons, which probably partly explains the popularity of hair trigger mods.
Exactly right. And this is driving my point. There are options. If you don’t like one option, try something else.
Pretty much every controller design has positives and negatives that change depending on who is using the controller. I enjoy the xbox one/series controllers for the most part, and they’re fairly reliable and my usual go to. I also have a dual shock somewhere that I don’t really use, and a stadia controller that was patched to work with anything, which gets more action than the dual shock, but not nearly as much as the Xbox controllers.
I usually play with kb/mouse, so controllers are already pretty rare in my gaming experience, but they make an appearance from time to time.
With these new steam controllers, I might see a good reason to use a controller more frequently… Especially if I can afford the $900+ that the steam machine will probably cost… They said it would be “competitively” priced in relation to PCs, not consoles. So I’m expecting $900+ right now. Time to start saving.
I mean honestly the real thing to worry about here is how long is valve going to actually support this and support their hardware. They’re notorious for releasing things and then forgetting about it within a year or two. I mean they announce the steam 2 controller years and years ago and then decided one day no we’re not going to make it. That disappointed so many people and people still are trying to get to their hands on the first steam controller that is what like 15 years old or something like that at this point.
They still support the original steam controller and the steam link though.
I would argue that, as long as valve gets it out the door, they support it. Index owners are still supported and that’s from a headset released in 2019. The oculus rift CV1 released in 2016 and it was killed around 2020 when oculus was purchased by Meta. Four years, and the headset is basically a paperweight for anyone who still owns one. A $600 USD paperweight.
Considering that the connection cable was the first thing to die and in 2020 meta stopped selling those cables, anyone I know who had one, including myself, either stopped using it, or was forced to stop when their cable inevitably broke.
There’s a dozen examples. The og steam controller, the steam link, and more recently the steam deck, which is still going strong.
Yes, they have issues getting ideas out the door, but when they get out the door, they’re supported for a good long while.
These don’t look like “we have an idea to build a thing” that will never make it to market… This looks like “we finally got a delivery date for these finished units and we’re excited about it”
I’m looking forward to it, no matter what. Valve has time and time again proven itself to be more consumer focused than other tech companies. More from them is good IMO.
That is the complete opposite of what they are. They are notorious for supporting all the hardware they have released indefinitely. They still keep releasing updates for the steam link and steam controller to this day and both of those have long been out of sale.
I mean officially the steam controller updates were discontinued in 2023 for the internal configurator and everything like that any current updates or anything like that is either the third party or being hacked together by people using it.
It looks ass on this picture. However, it kinda looks like a steamdeck without a screen which is no surprise. And I quite like the steamdeck controls…
Yup, I love my Steam Deck and usually prefer asymmetric joysticks, so as long as it feels like the SD, it’ll be fine.
I mean, sure it looks a bit odd, but if you remove the trackpads and reshape the controller based on not having those then it’s a pretty standard controller, no? It’s not like the added part for the trackpads does anything to change how you would hold the controller or anything, so I doubt it’d make much of a difference in use even if you never use the trackpads.
Yup, looks just like a DualSense controller from the PS5 without the trackpads.
Do you remember the old Xbox controllers that had the attachable keyboard? It’s essentially just that kind of shape. So you would use the controller and kind of ignore the touchpads on the bottom unless you actually need them, then you just move your hand down and use the touchpads for something like mouse control. I doubt the intention is for you to use all of the inputs at once like you would an Xbox or PlayStation controller.
I feel like if I use this controller those trackpads will go crazy because of my fat hands.
Steam did an amazing job on the controller management, you can already remap everything. Disabling track pads should be easy
Almost everything. I’ve got this weird issue where my controller gets misrecognised as the wrong type, and there’s simply no way for me to force steam to recategorise it.
I’m just glad they have dual thumbsticks now. I bought their last model on sale but quickly shelved it. Couldn’t get used to the touchpads and didn’t want to spend the next 2 months sucking at every game I played.
“The hands you have used to game are too fat. To obtain a special gaming wand, please mash the controller with your palm now”
You would need REALLY massive hands to touch those when your thumbs are resting on the analog sticks or the face buttons.
I guess this would be the appropiate post to ask under, isnt the steam frame using a last gen flagship arm soc and running linux a huge thing? That seems like its pretty close to us being abke to run linux on a newer phone. Tho at the same time i know phones are unhinged so thats why im asking, whether this is actually a big thing.
Gabephone in 2027? /s
That seems like its pretty close to us being abke to run linux on a newer phone
You can run Linux on current gen flagship arm SoCs. The framebuffer, gpu and cpu stuff mostly just works (with some support from hardware vendors). It’s the rest of the device that’s the problem: the phone part, the camera, sound, power management, etc.
I’d consider it a significant advancement. Phones have much tighter regulations than many consumer devices and this may not necessarily align with Valve’s long-term business objectives, however, so I have some skepticism but would be pleasantly surprised if they pursued such an endeavor.
I’d say a lot of the backend stuff has the stars aligning now for such potential. Front end user experience is increasingly the sore spot now.
Not just this but if the compatibility layer on the snapdragon works on over ARM chips for other Linux distros, we could have desktop Linux on arm (including on new macbooks if you want).
Someone far more knowledgeable is free to correct me but that might have been the single biggest announcement they made
Oh and maybe even install steam OS on a meta quest and use it with Linux but that’s a bit of a cake dream
Doubtful, phone vendors already had access to binary blobs to run Linux (Android) on them.
It’s no surprise Valve who is buying those SOCs is also provided with them.
