The upcoming modular Steam Controllers have seen a big change, with Valve ditching the touchscreen in favour of more traditional face buttons. The company announced the alterations at their Steam Dev Day event today.
According to the SteamDB log of events, the controllers will also use AA batteries, meaning that owners can use rechargeable batteries.
Valve are continuing to process feedback from their ongoing beta testing, so it’s possible we may see further tweaks down the line, for both their operating system SteamOS and the Steam Controllers. Here’s the current list of changes and confirmations from the event as posted on SteamDB.
Steam Controllers
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The retail controller will no longer have a touchscreen. It’ll have a DPAD and ABXY buttons for backwards compatiblity
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The retail controller will use AA batteries, this means the user can also use rechargable batteries
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Biometrics are important, but the hands are not the best place to capture them
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The controllers have gyroscopes, but these are not implemented in the firmware yet
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Core implementation of Steam Controller API is already available in the current Steamworks SDK
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The Steam Controller API supports up to 16 controllers at once
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Valve is keeping VR in mind while developing the controller
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More changes to the controller are coming, they have just started processing beta feedback
