As all console controllers feature joysticks, they are prone to an issue known as drifting where over time and with prolonged use, the joysticks will start experiencing problems where they will “move” on their own while playing a game. The issue really came to light with the Nintendo Switch, but it also affected other consoles like the Xbox and PlayStation.So with Valve’s Steam Deck adopting a Switch-like design with joystick controls, who’s to say that this won’t happen with the device? According to Valve, this was something they really paid attention to. Speaking to IGN in an interview, hardware engineer Yazan Aldehayyat said that Valve has done a lot of reliability testing to ensure this won’t happen.
Aldehayyat was quoted as saying, “We’ve done a ton of testing on reliability, on all fronts really – and all inputs and different environmental factors and all that kind of stuff. I think we feel that this will perform really well. And I think people will be super happy with it. I think that it’s going to be a great buy. I mean, obviously every part will fail at some point, but we think people will be very satisfied and happy with this.”
Steam Deck designer John Ikeda added, “We purposely picked something that we knew the performance of, right? We didn’t want to take a risk on that, right? As I’m sure our customers don’t want us to take a risk on that either.” Of course, only time will tell if the Steam Deck will run into drifting issues, but with all the problems we’ve seen console makers face, hopefully Valve is learning from their mistakes.
Filed in . Read more about Steam Deck and Valve. Source: ign