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Valve Shows Off Steam Deck’s Trackpad and Gyro Controls

We've seen a lot of the Steam Deck in the week following Valve's announcement. Most of it isn't anything particularly new–just some cutting-edge PC hardware that's been stuffed into a handheld package. But the latest tech demo (courtesy of IGN) shows something truly innovative that might revolutionize controller technology as we know it.

Valve designer Scott Dalton explains how the Deck's gyroscopic controls combine with its capacitive touchpads and thumbsticks to produce a brand new way to control your favorite games.

"We have capacitive touch joysticks,” Dalton begins, “and one of the really cool things about that is we can use that in tandem with our gyroscope to sort of turn on or turn off gyroscopic aiming and motion controls in games."

Dalton then presents just how this works. With his thumb resting on either the Deck's trackpad or thumbstick, he's able to tilt the entire Deck itself to control his view of the game world. And because the gyro offers much finer movements than what you'd get on either the trackpad or thumbstick, it allows the player to become far more accurate with their aim.

Related: Valve Says That It Is Going After A "Different Audience" Than Nintendo

It’s the same “precise little micro-movements” that you’d get from a mouse, explained Dalton, and it doesn’t take long for your brain to wrap itself around the whole thumb-on gyroscopic controls.

Best of all, this trick works on any game the Deck can play (which is to say, everything on Steam). If Developers wanted, they could even code new games specifically to use the Deck’s gyro controls and fine movement ability.

But perhaps more importantly, this technology doesn’t appear like it needs to be limited to the Deck. Imagine if the DualSense or Xbox controller had a similar gyroscope combined with touch-capacitive thumbsticks to perform the same trick. Then we might suddenly be in a world where controller users would have the same precise aim as mouse and keyboard users.

One can dream.

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