Remember that the track-pads are clickable like a face button, and it sports 2 shoulders and a 3rd pseudo-shoulder in the back-button on each side. That means that for a fighting-game you've got a full suite of buttons available to you. That's 9 buttons available assuming you keep your left thumb glued to the trackpad. Buttons are not in short supply.
The real question is how well the track-pad works as a D-pad. For Mario-style games that primarily use left and right but don't do much up and down? Should work fine.
For a Capcom-style fighting game with its elaborate rolls and whatnot, or the hyper-precise of a shmup? That's the real question.
>> For a Capcom-style fighting game with its elaborate rolls and whatnot, or the hyper-precise of a shmup? That's the real question.
Fortunately there are gazillions of USB controllers out there that will probably work out of the box with the Steam Machine. Many of the BT controllers will probably work too.
I find the Steam Controller interesting because it's the first console-type controller I've seen that might actually do a good job satisfying people coming from the PC gaming world.
The real question is how well the track-pad works as a D-pad. For Mario-style games that primarily use left and right but don't do much up and down? Should work fine.
For a Capcom-style fighting game with its elaborate rolls and whatnot, or the hyper-precise of a shmup? That's the real question.