Yeah, if Sony sold you a controller that requires playstation everyone would be up in arms... Ah, no, bad example, their controllers do require playstation and it is an open source driver that makes them work... I know! If Microsoft sold you a controller that requires Windows everyone would be up in arms... Ah, no, bad example, they already do and it's an open source driver that allows it to work outside of it... I guess this is just more of the same? Except (I still don't have mine so can't fully confirm but would be surprised if it didn't) the steam controller probably works just like a regular controller outside of Steam, you just lose SteamInput which is very important for this controller.

Difference is that those who extensively use Steam Input like me have already been adding games to Steam to utilize Steam Input in non Steam games to set up things like gyro aim, radial menus, modeshifts, action sets, etc.

Steam Input is a powerful remapper and free. Paid options like ReWASD ended up getting people banned, since mouse and keyboard users started using it to cheat by having their mouse emulate a joystick and the company refusing to remove support to bind controller inputs to mouse/keyboard.

It'd come down to how good Epic's controller remapping software is in supporting advanced configs, and customization for inputs like gyro and touchpads and third party controllers.

I have been thinking about this for a while, and I don't think I would be.

A few reasons to back this up, firstly Epic have no hardware background and so I have nothing to have previous excitement over. Compared to Valve, where I have used the Index and I own the old steam controller and a Deck. Epic launching a controller just isn't exciting to me.

Secondly, there are a load of controllers out there, and a lot of good controllers. If I was only able to use the controller within the Epic launcher, I would just get something else.

Thirdly, this would be an epic exclusive, I am not sure I would have actually head about it. They are impressively good at being a marketing black hole.

Steam's street cred in danger here. They are going to join them not beat them.

I would normally be pissed about it, and do tend to get annoyed at every other controller manufacturer who make it necessary to use proprietary apps to make full use of their controllers.

But in the case of Steam, I'm already using their input software with every other controller I use for the simple fact that it is that useful. Also, it's probably only a matter of time before there are upstream kernel drivers.