Had he actually implied that ?
Implied nothing, that is literally what was said
I see this controller as more of a setback than improvement.
I'm saying it can't be a setback if there is nothing before it to set back, unless he meant "the entire industry is being setback" but that is silly as well, as I pointed out. Most likely he didn't think this deeply about it and what he actually wants to say requires a different word, but that's why I pointed out: I like learning about other people's opinions, I want to know exactly what he's thinking, but I won't get that if he's describing it with words that don't mean what he thinks they mean.
Sorry, I did not notice before that this thread had comments related to my post.
Setback may indeed be the wrong word, I meant it as in two things:
1.
They are trying to build a controller which can be used to control pretty much everything - for me that feels like exactly the wrong approach, because I love the idea of different controller types for different types of games, which I think has been the way we were headed.
Back in the 80's you had your keyboard, joystick and... well... wasn't that about it? Yea, mouse, yea lightgun... PowerGlove and other stuff that "passed by" but was never supported...
Now we got dance mats, we got konga/drum/guitar controllers, we got the Wii controllers, we got kinect, we got steering wheels, we got joysticks with accurate button placement for the F16... in fact we got "build your own cockpit" for simulation fans... all this
in addition to the regular keyboard, mouse, joystick combo. And we got the upcoming omni and such.
Wonderfull stuff. And pretty well supported, thanks to USB standards and such.
Valve is not saying you cannot use those things, of course, but it could be that developers start to aim just for the lowest common denominator again on the PC - which happened with some games with regards to keyboard+mouse vs. XBox360 controller support years ago already... much less steering wheels...
2.
A lot of the stuff mentioned above, especially kinect and dance mats has encouraged people to
move. Even the stuff that hasn't has been good for "work ergonomics", if you can call them that in this context. The downside is that there's more junk to store in your house, but...
Valve has a picture of a cat and a dog sitting on the couch, staring at the screen in semidarkness. Really, I just find even the picture here:
http://store.steampowered.com/livingroom/SteamController/
rather
depressing, when I compare it with the sight of my kids playing Mario Dance...
Of course, people decide what kind of controllers they use, but I would like developers to try and get people to buy more stuff so they have to move to play... there are times when more cheap plastic in the corner of the living room can be beneficial
.
So, a "setback" (you can rephrase that, if neccessary, I'm not a native english speaker, so the words I choose are often wrong words that I've heard in a totally different context :rolleyes: ) in
those senses. And of course, the "I see this..." was supposed to be another way of saying "IMO" anyways...
(I have to say, though: The steam controller is likely to be better than the mouse+keyboard as far as ergonomics go, though, because that combo is a wrist injury just waiting to happen...)
Edit: Anyone countering with "the cat and mouse are playing a strategy game, not a dance game" yeah, they are and for strategy games I'd hope for something like Tom Cruise has in the movie Minority report right in the beginning. That would not even be terribly difficult to add with a Wii or Kinect type controller + some new little gadget for added detailed accuracy. But it isn't going to happen, because the basic assumption is that people want to sit down and use two knobby (or now touchscreeny) things with their thumbs.
And one more thing that is somewhat unrelated: The touchscreen, or indeed anything with a touchscreen is, the way I see it, at odds with Rift and Riftlikes... which might (or might not once again) be a big thing... At least they're cooler now than the VirtualBoy was <_< .
