Bells and whistles vs performance. Why not actually try and find out?
Just teasing you. Enjoy your Steam controller.
Regards.
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Thanks.
Not debating, just pointing out, it's more than bells and whistles for me personally. Having dual trackpads, for example, means you can assign WASD to the left trackpad rather than a stick. The trackpads are touch sensitive (and can also be clicked in 4 directions for extra inputs, but I'm going off-topic), so you can just smoothly move your finger around the trackpad to use WASD, for example. Same with the right trackpad, which I use for the mouse (or camera control, etc..) It feels a lot better to me than jerking sticks around.
The Grip buttons will probably be a staple going forward, too. They are 2 extra buttons behind the controller that are large and easy to push, with a satisfying "click" (as the rest of the controller has as well, including the trackpads). The Grips are good (IMO) for modification buttons, i.e. Left Grip + A = a different function than just pressing A, and so on.
The Steam Controller also gets ridiculously good battery life. Like, 50+ hours, even more at times. It's crazy how they managed to do that.
The dual-stage triggers (with an analog click/pull) basically give you 2 more buttons if you choose, a light pull vs. a full-click pull. I don't use that functionality a ton, but it's there. I do like controlling mouse clicks with just gentle presses of the triggers, not full clicks.
The ability to customize the controller is also extensive to say the least. It can be used for any game, pretty much, with enough effort to customize a control config, and just has a myriad of ways you can configure it, all left up to your own creativity.
Weird that the Xbox controller is $150, though, vs. $50 for the SC. That's...wow. Very odd.
Cheers.