New Steam Controller Wireless Horipad for Steam

TapTechNews June 27th news, nearly five years after Valve discontinued its rather experimental Steam Controller, a new officially licensed Steam controller is about to be launched. However, the manufacturer of this controller is not Valve, but the established Japanese peripheral manufacturer Hori, and it will only be available in Japan (at least for now).

The controller, named 'Wireless Horipad for Steam', has the same menu button layout as the Steam Deck and features a similar touch sensor on top of its joysticks to activate the gyroscope function. The controller supports Bluetooth wireless and USB-C wired connections, and the button mapping can be customized programmatically through Hori's software. Although it has many similarities with the Steam Deck, it is not a true 'Steam Controller 2', as it lacks the vibration function, the iconic back buttons, and the highly praised touchpad on the Steam Deck controller.

The new controller will be available in Japan on October 31st, offered in four colors: black, white, fluorescent yellow, and violet. The price is 7890 Japanese yen (TapTechNews note: currently about 43 US dollars). There is currently no news whether it will be available in other regions.

Functionally, the Wireless Horipad has some similarities to the currently available wired Horipad Pro for Xbox consoles. However, the Wireless Horipad has wireless connectivity (albeit limited to Bluetooth) and has four programmable buttons (two on the front and two on the back).

The statistics released by Valve today show that the usage rate of controllers on the Steam platform is increasing.