View attachment 473156
Renders for the new Steam VR controller has been found!
Link here:
https://www.uploadvr.com/valve-deckard-roy-controller-models-steamvr/
All I have to say is: PLEASE let this controller be Bluetooth enabled, able to directly connect to the damn PC and NOT locked to any headset. THAT alone will make VR gaming more affordable!
Bluetooth has too much latency. If it connects directly to a PC at all, it will be using the same Watchman dongles as other Valve hardware as it's already an established standard, and uses 2.4G which is the way to go when it comes to gaming. Steam Controller uses this too.
The rumor is that the Deckard is going to be a standalone headset, so the controllers will probably be camera tracked, which means they rely on cameras in the headset for tracking. You can't make that work without the headset. They could offer dual mode, camera based and lighthouse based tracking in one, but that would increase cost which is what they are trying to avoid by using camera based tracking in the first place, it just wouldn't make much sense. I don't really see that happening. It's possible they will release lighthouse tracked controllers based on the same design but whatever comes with the Deckard will probably not be lighthouse compatible.
These are obviously prototypes, who knows what the final units will end up looking like. At the same time, there are no big surprises here. It looks similar to Oculus Touch controllers, with a button layout more like traditional controllers. Moving the buttons to the right controller is an improvement, I always found it awkward needing to take my thumb off the left stick to use the buttons. The D-pad is a questionable decision though. I can't imagine anybody wanting to play 2D games in VR, D-Pad or no, and using a D-pad in place of buttons is always more awkward than just having buttons instead, so it would just make more sense to have 4 buttons on each controller and reserve the left controller buttons for seldomly used actions because that is the likely way the D-pad would end up being used anyway. But if they intend to make VR controllers finally compatible with Steam Input remapping then having control parity between conventional controllers and VR controllers does make that easier. I just don't think it's the most useful thing to put there.
A small touchpad a la Steam Deck to be able to map extra actions to a radial menu could be useful if they really want people to stream desktop games to it. I'd certainly rather have that over a D-pad.
