u/mrmaplebar — mrmaplebar

Door to door RAM salesman.

The blunt version is that we made the Companion Cube without a license from Valve.

Well... that was pretty damn stupid, now wasn't it? Were they under the impression that they could capitalize off of one of Valve's biggest IPs without getting some kind of license or consent first? Who do they think they are, an AI company?

The heavily touchpad based design was also just more radical than people were willing to accept. It forced you to adapt to a totally different control paradigm, and took a lot of time to get used to. I liked mine, but I can see why people may have bounced off of it pretty hard.

The new Steam Controller is kind of halfway between a traditional modern controller and the old SC, so it strikes a nice balance.

It's more expensive than we all would hope, but not unreasonably so given the economic situation.

Commenting to mention that I've posted an update to this thread at the top of the OP.

Turns out the hardware is fine, and the controller seems to be working perfectly fine in game!

The issue I'm having seems to be really limited to Steam menu navigation within Bazzite's Big Picture "Gaming" Mode.

I can live with that, for now.

They've released a couple firmware/steam updates for people having doubled inputs, so definitely make sure you have those all installed. A new firmware update for the controller was released last night.

I guess I'm up to date, though it's not really clear...

The first time I plugged in the puck, Steam recognized it and prompted me to update the puck firmware. Ok, that went fine.

But then it told me to unplug the puck and plug in the controller, at which point the controller was not automatically recognized and I had no way to proceed.

I ended up quitting out of that menu and finding a button to update the controller in the general settings menu, after which that button simply disappeared (?) or something...

Under Controller>Advanced settings in steam big picture mode, you can try forcibly updating all hardwired controllers.

I've tried that one. You click "start" and it spins for 2-3 seconds before going right back to saying "start". It's unclear to me what, if anything, it does.

>You shouldn't be having any signal issues at that range, so you either have something defective or some really bad signal interference. I'm leaning towards something being defective, because my puck doesn't have line of sight, is immediately next to a router and a bunch of bluetooth devices, and hasn't had any connection issues. You also mentioned the issues happening while wired, which definitely suggests a controller issue and not a connection problem.

Yeah... I've sent in a Steam support ticket.

I'm trying to keep my cool about it, but I'd be lying if I said I wasn't pretty annoyed at how shoddy this thing seems to be, given my long standing support of Valve hardware, the long delays, $100 price tags, struggling to buy it immediately, and it now being sold out.

I'm sure that I'll love it if I can get it to work, but it's still a little frustrating that this thing doesn't just work right out of the box.

I have a mouse and keyboard, I have other controllers. That's not really the point.

I don't feel that I should need to plug a separate device into my Bazzite HTPC "console" to pair my controller to the puck that it comes with. Valve have marketed this controller as a replacement for a mouse and keyboard in the livingroom/bedroom setup, right?

Yes. Updated the puck, the controller, and Bazzite.

Both Bazzite and Steam on their respective Beta branches.

I think you're probably right, but I also think selling the Machine without the Controller is an odd choice, given Valve's bigger vision of it being a living room console.

With that said, they've already sold many of us a controller, so... It's kind of a mess.

I got one at 10:05, but I really had to mash through it. It was in my cart at 9:59, but I kept getting initialization errors at the payment stage.

I should mention that I added $100 to my Steam Wallet a few days ago to make the process easier. It still sucked.

As rough as this is it wasn't nearly as bad as my experience ordering the Steam Deck.....

>If you want more than gaming (like YouTube), wouldn't it make more sense to get a wireless keyboard with an integrated touchpad

I have one, albeit kind of a crappy one that takes forever to turn on after it goes to sleep.

Right now I have an 8bitdo controller, a Micom mini trackball (which also kind of stinks, because the ball is so light that it jumps around a lot), and a wireless keyboard. Ideally the Steam Controller would allow me to replace all 3 at the same time, especially when gaming is what my Bazzite HTPC "console" is used for the most.

$100 is steep. I've been exited to use this controller for my Bazzite system, and I was mentally prepared to pay ~$75 for it, but I really wasn't expecting it to be as expensive as it is.

With that said, I'll probably still be buying one. Because while there are other good (and cheaper) controllers out there, this is the only one with dual trackpads and that's been designed for HTPC control.

I want

I used to think that would be a bad idea (because it's very un-console-like to sell a device that isn't plug-and-play out of the box) but I might be coming around on it a bit if it means a more affordable option.

They'd need to make it **very** clear to buyers, though.

I honestly wish they'd just release the controller sooner rather than later. I can somewhat understand delaying the Machine and Frame due to the supply shortages, but if the controller is ready then they should just put it out there.

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