It’s been a while since we’ve seen Valve branding on a non-Valve controller has a screen attached to it. Then, out of the blue, Valve helped a Japanese gaming hardware company, Hori, put a Steam button on a brand new controller. At the same time, why is perhaps the most influential company in computer games raising the rise of the controller, perhaps disrupting the absolute supremacy of the mouse and keyboard? Is this a true paradigm shift in PC gaming?
Come on, no – of course not. It simply represents the change in the portability of PC gaming. It’s obvious from what controllers Valve decides to promote. Valve has not released a new version of the Steam controller since its original debut in 2014. Now comes Hori with the new Horipad for Steam. It’s a wired/Bluetooth wireless controller that features many of the same buttons as the Steam Deck.
Although it bears the Valve logo and is designed to support games on Steam, it lacks in a few key areas. There’s no rumble, headphone jack, or trackpads whatsoever. It has two reverse sticks and two programmable buttons below the bottom joystick, but that’s two fewer reverse buttons than the Steam Deck has.
It’s priced around $50, but will only be available in Japan this summer, with no word on a western release. The price isn’t bad, but anyone looking for rumble would be better off with a more affordable controller option if they don’t already have one. According to recently released statistics from Valve, average daily controller usage on Steam on the world’s largest PC gaming platform has risen from 5% in 2018 to 15%.
First of all, there are a lot of caveats. In 2018, Valve recorded a maximum of 18.5 million peak concurrent users, but in 2023 the company he boasted 33 million peak concurrent users. You won’t nearly double the average number of players without throwing in a few more different classes of gamers who may not be keen on the old M&K setup.
It would be helpful if you also consider the changing hardware landscape. Valve says 10% of users of these controllers are plugged in Steam decks. Another 85% are split between PlayStation and Xbox controllers, with more on the Microsoft side – less than half of those using a controller with Valve’s Steam Input controller support.
It’s interesting how Valve would consider the Steam Deck as a controller for their purposes. Valve’s statistics make it unclear whether other notebooks such as Asus ROG Ally, Lenovo Legion Goor any smaller brands are also considered controllers.
Steam Deck is much more than a screen attached to a controller. If you treat Steam Deck like a computer, you can get pretty crafty with how and what you use it for. I wrote entire guide of apps and clients you access with Steam Decks. Most players will likely use it as a means of gaming on the go,
The mouse and keyboard aren’t going away due to a wave of irrelevance, but a contingent of older gamers seem to be gravitating toward controllers. There is a push among competitors Call of Duty players to switch to controller.
Then there are people like me: the aging and decrepit. I look at my desk, at the old keyboard sitting there, which has been used so much that the coating on the WASD keys has been worn down to the clean plastic by my rough fingertips, and I feel sick at the thought of being chained to a desk for any extended gaming session.
Everyone has a preference. For now, I have or mine Steam DeckPlayStation 5 DualSense or SCUF Envision Pro, and this is specifically for PC. I have a Gulikit KK3 Max that I’ve tested a few times when I wanted to load up on my brother’s Nintendo Switch, but my poor mouse and keyboard will continue to rot unless I have some specific use for them.
