Valve Shows Off New Steam Controller Design, Loses Touchscreen But Gains Better Button Layout

Steam-creator Valve has announced a new look for its in-development prototype Steam Controller, as part of its inaugural Steam Dev Days event in Washington this week. The controller is foregoing keeping the previously-teased touch screen and is adding traditional button diamonds beneath each haptic trackpad. One set will be for traditional button usage, and one will work as a D-Pad.

The image shown above is a mockup of the target look for the controller.

The controller will also have gyroscopes, work on AA batteries, and can be connected with 15 other controllers at once to one Steam Machine. Not that there are many local 16 player PC games, but it’s great to have the option should a great party game idea come along. In addition to this new layout, the three rectangular buttons along the bottom of the controller have ostensibly been removed, but could make a return later. These could be remapped, but were originally slated to act as “Quick Save” and “Quick Load” buttons for games that might use them frequently, such as The Elder Scrolls V: Skryim or Deus Ex: Human Revolution.

As for the removal of the touchscreen, Valve said that it “was removed as ghost mode made it redundant”, ghost mode being a user interface overlay that would appear on-screen showing your current input bindings for the controller. Previously, the touchscreen served this purpose.

Below is a 3D-printed mockup of the newly-designed controller.

The Steam Controller for playing your favorite PC games kicked back on the couch will be available at retail and digitally through the Steam store later this year. It will be priced competitively with other controllers on the market, which means it should range anywhere from $40 to $70 per.

To learn more about the systems you’ll be using your Steam Controller with, check out our video feature on Steam Machines. To learn about the operating system running those machines, which is being developed by Valve themselves, check out our video feature on the much-anticipated SteamOS.