Could this redefine console gaming? Valve, the company behind Half-Life, Portal and the Steam digital gaming service is totally re-inventing the game pad.

Valve’s new controller, the Steam Controller, will be based around “super-precise haptic feedback,” and will allow keyboard and mouse gamers to move their gaming onto a television to get the ‘living room’ experience. The new controllers will rock the market, as they will not include a D-pad or analog joystick – the two features that have been consistent in gaming controllers since 1982. Instead of these options, the Steam Controllers will have two trackpads. In their announcement Valve said the trackpads will allow for a higher fidelity, they added:

Steam gamers, who are used to the input associated with PCs, will appreciate that the Steam Controller’s resolution approaches that of a desktop mouse. Whole genres of games that were previously only playable with a keyboard and mouse are now accessible from the sofa.

Valve says that these controllers will be able to support “past, present and future,” steam games, as they have managed to trick older games into thinking they are being controlled with a mouse and keyboard.

Valve’s controllers will also feature a touchscreen, and it’s completely symmetrical, meaning that both right-handed and left handed people can play with no problems. Check out the picture below for a diagram of all 16 buttons – and this is cool – you can press eight of them without moving your thumbs off of the trackpads.

In a blog post on Gamasutra, Tommy Refenes, a video games designer and producer, talks about  his experience  playing Super Meat Boy using the Steam Controller, he said:

The big problem with touch pads/ touch screens is you never know when you are actually over a button or pressing it. Valve has tried to rectify this by having some adjustable haptic feedback fire when you press one of the circle pads. Throughout my play session the haptic feedback helped with the problem, but wasn’t enough to solve it.

He said he let the Valve engineers know about his experience and they were able to fix the issues, and he was able to play Meat Boy on an advanced level with no problems. Refenes said he would probably still choose the 360 controller over the Steam Controller because he is more comfortable and familiar with the machine.

300 beta testers will be given the device to test later on this year, and Valve is currently working with partners to develop steam consoles.

Would you prefer to keep your PC gaming on your PC or do you long for ‘the living room experience?’

[Source: Wired, Guardian Express]