In particular I want the two joysticks the steam deck has! Touchpads + joysticks NOT one or the other. If the steam controller came out with that and back buttons it would set a new standard and decisively reorient how people think about gamepads with respect to complex pc games.

If it just has two touchpads or two joysticks it really isn’t an evolutionary step up, more of a lateral step that improves precision (unless you include gyro… which the next steam controller needs to have).

I know this seems like an esoteric point but in my experience steam deck layouts for complex games all rely on the steam deck having 4 xy input devices.

The next steam controller should prioritize this scheme of the four basic inputs + triggers and buttons to help precipitate the concept in peoples minds that a steam style gamepad has two joysticks and two touchpads.

Longterm establishing this control “standard” as a noun in the collective minds of indie and strategy game fans and developers is by far the most important thing a new steam deck controller could do.

If an indie developer can buy a relatively inexpensive steam controller and physically test out and make some steam deck bindings for their game…they are that much more likey too.