Follow Tom's Hardware on Google News , or add us as a preferred source , to get our latest news, analysis, & reviews in your feeds.
Hassam Nasir is a die-hard hardware enthusiast with years of experience as a tech editor and writer, focusing on detailed CPU comparisons and general hardware news. When he\u2019s not working, you\u2019ll find him bending tubes for his ever-evolving custom water-loop gaming rig or benchmarking the latest CPUs and GPUs just for fun. ","collapsible":{"enabled":true,"maxHeight":250,"readMoreText":"Read more","readLessText":"Read less"}}), "https://slice.vanilla.futurecdn.net/13-4-25/js/authorBio.js"); } else { console.error('%c FTE ','background: #9306F9; color: #ffffff','no lazy slice hydration function available'); } Hassam Nasir Social Links Navigation Contributing Writer Hassam Nasir is a die-hard hardware enthusiast with years of experience as a tech editor and writer, focusing on detailed CPU comparisons and general hardware news. When he’s not working, you’ll find him bending tubes for his ever-evolving custom water-loop gaming rig or benchmarking the latest CPUs and GPUs just for fun.
edzieba That's great! Having a peripheral device's operation tied to a shop application is unacceptable, no matter which corporation owns the shop. Reply
mcmx77 edzieba said: That's great! Having a peripheral device's operation tied to a shop application is unacceptable, no matter which corporation owns the shop. They made it, they get to choose what to do with it. Reply
sarge1892 edzieba said: That's great! Having a peripheral device's operation tied to a shop application is unacceptable, no matter which corporation owns the shop. The reason it's not compatible is steam input is not some random controller spec it's specifically built for pc games and calls on hooks direct into the game that only steam input can make use of Xinput meanwhile from ms only sends forward controller input and leaves the game to handle what that does Steam input sends game controll instructions and it manages how the controller hooks into those Finally whilst cool a steam controller on any other system is kinda useless all of the custom inputs like touchpads and capacitive sensors are not supported by anything It's cool it can be done but this wasn't like Sony making up a custom spec just to be proprietary Valve created the spec because it fundamentally works different than how every other controller ever works Reply
thestryker sarge1892 said: Valve created the spec because it fundamentally works different than how every other controller ever works You wrote an awful lot of words while ignoring a very simple fact: Literally nothing stopped Valve from implementing an Xinput fallback mode other than choosing not to. This choice doesn't benefit anyone except for Valve. Reply
edzieba sarge1892 said: The reason it's not compatible is steam input is not some random controller spec it's specifically built for pc games and calls on hooks direct into the game that only steam input can make use of That makes it worse, not better. Tying something as fundamental as input handling to a shop is utterly ludicrous. USB HID is universal (and already supports the pedestrian selection of input devices on the Steam Controller). DirectInput is universal under Windows (albeit legacy), and OpenXR is universal across OSes, and its input API can be implemented independently of any display output – and if you for some reason want to configure input mapping in some third application rather than in game you can do that with OpenXR. If Valve chose to implement SteamInput in addition to one of the many choices of open standard, that would be one thing. But instead they choose to be proprietary-only. Reply
Key considerations
- Investor positioning can change fast
- Volatility remains possible near catalysts
- Macro rates and liquidity can dominate flows
Reference reading
- https://www.tomshardware.com/peripherals/controllers-gamepads/SPONSORED_LINK_URL
- https://www.tomshardware.com/peripherals/controllers-gamepads/enthusiast-reverse-engineers-steam-controller-2-puck-creates-diy-openpuck-that-works-without-steam-input-custom-firmware-can-emulate-nintendo-playstation-and-xbox-controllers#main
- https://www.tomshardware.com/subscription
- How Nations Are Deploying AI for Strategic Priorities
- Why Performance per Watt Is the Ultimate Metric for AI Infrastructure Efficiency
- China claims chip exports nearly doubled to $177 billion in the first half of 2026 as memory prices surged — 96% year-on-year increase inflated by hikes
- AMD FSR Multi-Frame Generation with 8x mode spotted — experimental driver settings could hint at FSR's next evolution
- 'PCIe Gen7 development has already started,' says Silicon Motion's Alex Chou — Nvidia's Storage Next initiative is becoming a focal point
Informational only. No financial advice. Do your own research.