Valve officially discontinued the Steam Controller at the tail end of 2019. It wasn’t a peripheral that was ever made officially available for the local market, but it still marked the end of a controller with the Steam logo on it. There is now a new one in the market, dubbed the Wireless Horipad for Steam, and while it’s not made by Valve itself, being officially licensed means it gets to sport the iconic logo on one of its buttons.
As the name suggests, the Wireless Horipad for Steam is made by Hori, a big name in the peripheral markets, especially for but not limited to arcade sticks. In some ways, the controller is meant to mimic the Steam deck to a certain extent, but clearly some compromises were made. Coming as more or less standard these days though is a choice of Bluetooth or USB-C connectivity.
On one hand, it has more buttons on its face compared to the average controller, mirroring the extra buttons on the Valve handheld plus two more buttons at the bottom seemingly for macro purposes. There are some added benefits too, such as gyro controls – which are activated via touch sensors on its sticks. There are also a pair of buttons at the back where you’d usually see paddles on high end controllers, and two switches to toggle between Steam and XInput, as well as what looks like between analog and digital inputs.
But on the flip side, the trackpads of the Steam Deck are oddly absent on the Wireless Horipad for Steam. It doesn’t even get rumble, a staple for controllers minus those made with specific cost and weight reduction goals in mind. It also has the asymmetrical stick setup which, to be fair, is a taste thing.
For what it’s worth, the Wireless Horipad for Steam is not the most expensive controller on the market, though understandable considering the features not present on it. It launches in Japan first, on 31 October, for JPY7,980 (~RM272), which isn’t bad considering the base DualSense controller retails at RM349. This is especially if you value the paddles at the back over said track pad.
There’s also the matter of availability, as there is currently no word on availability of the Wireless Horipad for Steam outside of Japan. But considering Hori controllers are commonly imported to our shores, finding one shouldn’t be too hard a challenge, assuming you’re willing to pay the premium that it entails.
(Source: Hori)
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