Valve has posted an update detailing eight highlights of their new controller including seven new features. Full details of the updates can be found here. Valve released the their gamepad which replaces the traditional analog sticks with circular track pads in an attempt to bridge the gap between mouse and keyboard control and console style gamepads.
The Valve post starts off by featuring the gamepad’s gyro senso,r possibly in an attempt to remind players that it exsists. On of the main criticisms of the new controller has been a lack of precision in the trackpads. Putting the gyro sensor’s ability to improve precision may be Valve’s way of providing a tutorial to frustrated early adopters.
The announced features that are actually new to the controller are as follows:
- Mouse-like joystick mode: An update to the way the track pads handle camera control and aiming.
- Mouse Regions: Adds the ability to map the trackpads to a region of the screen.
- Touch Menu: A customisable pop-up menu navigable from the trackpad.
- Configuration Traveling: Adds the ability to use preset controller configurations remotely.
- Home Theater PC: Adds the ability to use the controller to navigate a home theater PC’s desktop.
- Non-steam Game Support: Allows the controller to be used with games bought outside the steam platform.
- Controller HUD: Allows players to see controller inputs via in game pop-ups.
Some of the new features will only be available with the Steam Beta client.