Oh right, I forgot.

Pretty much, yes. To give it some more detail:

• A machine running SteamOS will be able to install and natively run some of the games in the Steam library (Linux games most likely)
• If you have a PC running the Steam client you can stream games to a SteamOS machine and play them through that.
• Games with controller and Big Picture support will probably play best, but they have said you’ll be able to use keyboard and mouse for SteamOS if you want.
• There’s currently no way to run non-native games on SteamOS without streaming them from another PC, though.

EDIT: Confirmation that Steam Machines will have controllers. If that info’s already out there, I wonder if that makes it less likely their third announcement is about input.

I hope there will be drivers for Xbox and Playstation controller support for Steam OS. New controllers are fun and all, but I don't like changing something that isn't broken. The Xbox 360 controllers is probably the nicest controller I've ever played with so I prefer to keep it.

The third announcement might be about the new way they want to run the Steam store. Turning it into sort of an API instead of a controlled environment or something.

The easier option for Vale would just be to allow people to install/create custom drivers, and the community will have 360 controller support within a week.

SteamOS will be opensource. They can just do nothing and there will be console controller support anyway

Bear in mind the Xbox 360 controller drivers are made by Microsoft and built into Windows – while it’s feasible that Valve can make their own (and they probably will since a lot of Steam games now have built-in controller support), there may be some difficulties in making it happen.

That said, the PS3 controller has third-party drivers and I know of at least one Mac OS X port of the 360 pad’s drivers, so I’d imagine it can’t be that hard.

A big part of PC gaming has always been modding, too – I would bank on Valve encouraging people to get involved. I have to imagine Valve will be trying to bring in Steam Workshop and other stuff, too, to try and sweeten the deal.

As GabeN said in the video I posted: "We don't want to compete with our content creators. We'll lose, very quickly."

Valve's greatest trick always was letting the community make their products more appealing for no pay.

Also,

O - SteamOS
[O] - SteamOS in a box
O+O - SteamOS cloud communication (maybe)

O+O represents the face of the internet when they announce Half-Life 3.

Looks like the backend of an Y-Wing from Star Wars to me.

Star Wars. Wars. Half-life 2 was about war. Half-life 3 confirmed!

Yay for original jokes.

Jokes? Alyx told (bad) jokes. Half-life 3 confirmed!

It’s a controller.

e: Holy shit this thing’s actually kinda crazy. Two high-res trackpads in place of thumbsticks, a touch-screen in the center, full haptic feedback instead of rumble, and it’s designed with legacy support of keyboard and mouse games in mind.

Interesting design. Makes me wonder how much it's going to cost since it doesn't look like a very cheap controller.

Knowing Valve there’ll be a flash sale.

Well, that clears that up.

This thing'll be perfect for Aquaria. That game always felt like you needed two mice to play it properly.

I'm still in no rush to buy one, though. M&KB suits me fine. I can't imagine cursor control being more responsive than it is on a mouse; "Push distance x in direction -> Go distance x in direction" beats "Push in direction -> Move at set speed in direction"

The layout of the buttons is completely retarded btw. What happens if I need to run and press Y at the same time?

Why are you running, and playing video games at the same time? Sit down and play them, stupid.

I really don't like that design. It looks awkward to hold.

You change the controls configuration.

This controller design is unfamiliar therefore it is instantly weird

NO IT'S RETARDED LOOK AT WHERE THEY PUT THAT ONE BUTTON THERE ARE NO BUTTONS I HAVE EVER SEEN THAT HAVE BUTTONBS SSDOFAKASDFLASDFLKAWELFKAWELRKAWSDFKASDLFKASDLFKASDLFKWDLKFASLDKFASDLKFSA

god i don't care about you people i think maybe most of you are barely human

I don't know why you even bother most of the time, OANST.

He doesn't have many people to insult now, remember?

Also, the pad looks great.

Yes? This statement is kind of a syllogism.

Okay Aristotle, what Slog Bait is trying to say is that we shouldn’t instantly make assumptions about how well a brand new controller design works when we’ve known about its existence for like two hours and none of us have ever so much as touched one.

Gotta see it in action and perhaps try using it before passing judgement... Dunno how it'll be on par with good 'ol M&K, though.

I'll admit that I briefly thought "WTF is that?" when I saw a picture of it before reading the article headline.

We should stop but we won't. This is the internet. People like to take the piss and jump onto the bandwagon. Remember when the PS3 controller was first announced?

http://data4.blog.de/media/603/16846...954e9c2_m.jpeg

It probably would of worked alright.

But that's almost the same as what got released. The analogue sticks just look closer together, and the overall thing is much larger.

It doesn't look like a banana/cartoon moon/boomerang now

Vaguely on-topic, Valve filed a trademark for Half-Life 3 with the EU trademark office.

http://neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=688589

Well. Good to see the Xi3 are coping well after their hardware deal with Valve didn't work out.



Wow, it even looks like Steam.

The touchpads seem better than the traditional thumbstick, but I'm still not entirely convinced at it being on par with a mouse and keyboard, especially considering how much of a pain a laptop trackpad is to use... Although it seems to work well enough in the video. Guess I'll have to try it. It's certainly interesting.

The trouble with using 1:1 trackpads to control a cursor-based strategy game is that you always have to compromise between speed and accuracy. I'm interested by the setup they used for Papers, Please, but that still requires you to "walk" your thumbs, picking them off of the pad and setting them down at the other end again.

Preferably, you'd be able to move across the screen in a single sweep, but still be able to move the cursor in tiny increments. Which is why I'm expecting someone to make a driver like this, where you move an area quickly across the screen, and move the mouse slowly within that area.

You can still move across the screen in one sweep but have controlled movement. It's called acceleration and there's clearly a decent amount of it being used in the Portal demonstration.

I like the one with the canister on it.