The Steam Dev Days conference and presentation program is currently underway in Seattle, Washington. Yesterday there were some interesting snippets of news concerning controllers that users might want to use with Steam and with VR applications. Specifically, UploadVR captured some pictures and details of a prototype Steam VR controller, and Gamasutra live-blogged a Steam Controller talk which revealed that the PS4 DualShock 4 controller is the first third party controller to get native Steam Controller API support.
VR Stream Controller
Below you can see an image of a prototype VR Stream Controller. The far left image of the four is said to show a Steam Controller with incorporated 'lighthouse tracking' for positional use in conjunction with the HTC Vive base-station.
The middle controller images you can see are said to be of sleeker versions of the HTC Vive wands. At the far right of the pic you can see a kind of grip sensing controller which wraps around your hand and lets you pick up and drop virtual objects with good hand and finger positional accuracy.
PS4 DualShock 4 controller support
A forthcoming update for Steam will offer native support for the PS4 DualShock 4 controller, among other devices. The Steam developers chose to implement the Sony PS4 controller support first as it is said to be:
- High quality,
- Offer standard controls,
- Implement a gyro and touchpad,
- And existing PC support was weak.
There are a lot of overlapping qualities with the Steam Controller, making the PS4 DualShock 4 controller an obvious choice for Steam support. The developers say that in use the PS4 controller is communicated with directly via Steam.
The developers went on to tease that "Similar support for other controller models is coming, but Valve isn’t ready to announce any devices or dates for those just yet".
