this post was submitted on 14 Apr 2026
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Steam Hardware

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A place to discuss and support all Steam Hardware, including Steam Deck, Steam Machine, Steam Frame, and SteamOS in general.

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Leaker here is Brad Lynch, who generally seems reliable as a leaker for Valve software and products. He was also the source for the leaked renders of the steam controller.

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[–] rotopenguin@infosec.pub 5 points 5 days ago (3 children)

The trackpads on the deck are nice, it's a great substitute for a mouse when you don't have a mouse. But that's all they are. Not a single game* has done anything to show off any greater potential. Binding ten keyboard keys into a dodgy ring menu is not a pleasant interface. I have never once wanted to use a trackpad as a redundant joystick input. I would like to freely pan around with one pad and point with the other - imagine that in a puzzle box game. Nothing can do this, the closest to an independent view control i've found is "bind mouse wheel up/down buttons to vertical swipes".

Heck, I would like a water filled toy game where you just press the pads to squirt rings upwards, and it feels just a little bit haptically squooshy. Nobody has done even that much to make a game feel truly at home on the Deck with the deck's controls.

The new controller looks nice, but I don't see any reason for it to replace the lowest-common-denominator xbox style controller. Especially when there are some really good xbox clones with magnetic sticks being sold for super cheap.

*okay, there's Aperture Desk Job. That hardly adds up to a game, it's basically the manual that comes with the Deck controller. I've spent more time playing the PC Jr's bios tutorial.

[–] smeg@feddit.uk 1 points 4 days ago

I would like to freely pan around with one pad and point with the other

I think XCOM 2 does exactly this

[–] strongarm@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 5 days ago

The Dishonoured games and Prey by Arcane Studios actually bothered to make proper Steam Controller configs and use the proper glyphs too, it makes a difference

Yeah I only really use track pad as mouse in steam desktop. It's pretty cool there tho.