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Valve Reveals New Steam VR Controller Prototypes At Steam Dev Days (UPDATE)

by Jamie Feltham • October 12th, 2016

Update: More information added about the controller prototype being shown at Steam Dev Days.

Valve apparently didn’t want to make its Steam Dev Days conference a PR event, but that isn’t stopping it from making some exciting new announcements, like revealing a new prototype Steam VR controller.

The company debuted a few images of new controllers (above) at a keynote speech today, and a prototype will be available at the show. One of the prototypes allows for a more realistic grasping sensation.

If you check out the prototype at right in the image it seems to be an extremely tiny gadget that wraps around the back of the hand, obscured in the photo by the controller itself. With this in place, you can completely open your hand — letting you easily drop virtual objects the same way you would in the real world. We’re also told the controller senses finger positions.

We reached out to Cloudhead Games, one of only two companies we’ve confirmed to have sold more than $1 million worth of VR software, to find out more about this demo and the controllers. Here’s what we heard back:

We were one of few developers who employed hands on the Vive, and our code just happened to work with Valve’s new controllers right out of the gate. They basically told us we have pretty hands–it was very flattering. So we made a new sandbox on the beach with a bunch of the pick up items from Call of the Starseed in one spot. Didn’t have to change much at all.

Right now gripping virtual objects with the HTC Vive controllers is awkward, with grip buttons on the side that are hard to reach and don’t make much sense since you are already grasping the controller. Letting developers try out this unnamed hardware prototype likely provides Valve valuable feedback they can use to hone in on even more immersive controllers that are better adapted to grasping and gripping objects.

Aside from that, it’s hard to tell what’s new from the pictures, though the thumbnail second from right certainly looks like a sleeker pair of Vive wands. You can also see a Steam controller on the far left that appears to feature lighthouse tracking.

basestation

It also looks like a new version of the lighthouse base station is on the way next year, as seen in the above slide taken by Shawn Whiting.

More on this story as it develops…

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  • OkinKun

    lmao.. called it.

  • polysix

    bad luck touch.

    • Jorgie

      Yea, I am sure they are shaking in their shoes over a couple PowerPoint slides. 🙂

    • OkinKun

      bad luck how? This shows that Touch did things right, and they’re quickly thinking of controller redesigns to catch up. It also means vive owners might need more controller hardware. lol So bad luck for you maybe.

      • OSM

        There’s an argument to be made that Facebook saw the Oculus Touch as their opportunity to create VR experiences that could’t be ported to the Vive, or reproduced on the Vive using Revive injectors. You might remember they got into a lot of trouble for adding DRM to their firmware to stop Revive from working, and later removed it after a serious backlash. Their recent Oculus Connect 3 presentation reiterated that they’re serious about creating a walled, controlled experience that doesn’t overlap with Vive. One way they could do that would be to fund VR developers who would use their Touch gesture recognition technology to make games that the current Vive wands simply couldn’t play. If Valve’s new controller really does have gesture recognition equal to the Touch, then that advantage is already evaporating.

        • OkinKun

          That’s absurd conspiracy theory territory. Intentionally adding in something Vive couldn’t do, for that reason, probably didn’t factor in one bit. They’ve had this controller design for over a year at least, as far as we know, and this feature was hinted at long before people had Vive in their hands. I doubt that sorta thing was being considered, as they couldn’t predict that far ahead.

          • OSM

            Nothing you wrote contradicted what I wrote. My suggestion was that Oculus were funding software with an expectation that developers would use the Touch gesture recognition tech, thereby making their software de facto exclusive even beyond any timed exclusivity Oculus might contract them to.

          • OkinKun

            And I don’t think that’s a problem, as long as those features are an advancement to the input device. And for Touch, it certainly is. If it means Vive has to release more hardware to keep up, oh well.

        • G-man

          the vive can do what touch does, the track pad is touch sensitive, and in a superior way to how the button on the touch are touch sensitive. they are a either on or off response for if you are or arent touching the button. someone could easily implement gestures based on where you are touching the trackpad, its just no one has bothered to.

    • Deewin

      Vr should not be about vive vs oculus, that’s very petty thinking for companies that’s basically making the future happening now. Also don’t count out Michael Abrash. That man is a genius and he left Valve for a reason.

  • Paulo

    Ergonomically, it needs work so this is great. But are there new features?

    • wheeler

      It looks like at the very least it will now detect your grasp and allow you to release the controller without it falling, but we’ll know if there are any other new features later today.

  • So, the next generation tracking lighthouse device will be release next year and maybe will be a new controller too, more like Oculus Touch, i was thinking on buying a Vive this xmas but i think is best to wait on a refinement model next year, is a bad time to thinking on buying?