Steam Controller Loses Touchscreen, Gets Buttons

Attendees at Steam Dev Days have been tweeting that the touchscreen on the Steam Machine controller has been removed as unneeded thanks to a new feature called "ghost mode". The idea behind which displays the controls mapped to the buttons on the screen so you don't have to look down from the screen, when you move your thumb on the Steam Controller's touchpad, you can see a ghostly image of your thumb on your TV screen as well, and you can press virtual buttons placed there.

Touchscreen was removed as ghost mode made it redundant #SteamDevDays

— Tomas Rawlings (@TomasRawlings) January 15, 2014

They will be bringing button diamonds for backwards compatibility with other controllers. No mid touch screen. #SteamDevDays

— Becky (@omglazerkittens) January 15, 2014

Also, the buttons will be rotated into the traditional diamond layout to provide better backwards compatibility. Thanks to the new controller API, there will be support for up to 16 controllers or so twitter posts have been saying. The presumption is that a third touchpad will be added in or near the diamond to provide ghost mode functionality although the original touchpad controller never made it to beta testers so it is possible this will not happen.