Hardware Hori has gotten approval to make a new "Steam Controller", and it's sadly a generic one.

[Krvavi Abadas]

for reference, Valve's own official gamepad (released in 2015) was this neat thing.

while certainly not a 100% replacement for all previous controllers (2D games in particular aren't great without a D-Pad) the trackpads were a genuinely excellent replacement for the right analog stick, being a far better alternative to mouse aim than motion controls.
it also supported haptic feedback and back paddles before they became commonplace.


what makes this particularly baffling is that the Steam Deck kept some of the more unique features of that original controller (mainly the trackpads) alongside a more standard button layout, so i'm not sure why Hori didn't consider doing the same thing.

 

[JoshuaJSlone]

What are the buttons underneath the d-pad and right stick?

 

[Imitatio]

What are the buttons underneath the d-pad and right stick?

Seems like they’re two of the four freely programmable “paddles” (two in the back, two on the front).

 

[Tangerine_Cookie]

I always felt from trying to use it that the Steam Controller needed a second revision. The touchpads had some nice feeling for some use cases, and it's still probably the king at trying to shove non-controller games into a controller.

It wasn't that great at games that already supported a controller, though, with the left touchpad requiring a lot of finnicky setup and constant relearning if you wanted to use it as a dpad (I played the entirety of Axiom Verge like that, and it was honestly miserable), and the analog stick felt off somewhat.

A second revision could have polished up everything a bit. This is just a Steam branded generic PC controller, though. This ain't it.

 

[P.Scoop]

I should point out that this new controller is based on their HoriPad+ for Nintendo System, which is funny to see.

HORIPAD + for Nintendo Switch™

stores.horiusa.com

 

[Apopheniac]

On the one hand, I suppose it's recognizing that controller support on PC has improved a lot since the Steam Controller released, so there's less need for mouse emulation via the touchpads. On the other hand, since Steam has good support for most standard controllers, I'm not sure who the target audience would be for this.

 

[Jahranimo]

That looks like the Horipad+ they released on Switch a couple years ago, except that one was pretty lacking in features and had a "fake gyroscope" so the motion aim wasn't very good.

Hope the Japan market likes this....

 

[Yamanoi]

I miss Steam Controller so much. It needed a 2.0 version.

 

[Hailinel]

This is less a "Hori Steam controller" and more a "Hori controller that is PC-first".

 

[Razgriz]

I can get going for a more traditional design. Trackpads instead of joysticks were a neat idea but as I can attest even with the Steam Deck; it's just not suitable for that sort of thing. I mean, it's nicer than the low accuracy touch screens that both Steam Deck and the Switch have, but for actual gaming it's mainly an exercise in frustration.

 

[BotenAnna]

I'm not sure who the target audience would be for this.

Considering who is making this and where it's releasing, I could take a guess? PC gaming is really growing in Japan and I assume Steam is a apart of that, but the defacto PC controller is an Xbox one. With the state of that brand in Japan, it might make sense to release an Xinput, Xbox layout controller over there specifically for use with the PC/Steam market.