The Steam Controller doesn't just scream. It sings, too
The Steam Controller offers unique features that set it apart from traditional gaming controllers. It can play sounds, including the iconic Wilhelm scream, and even vibrate to produce MIDI audio. This innovative functionality has sparked excitement within the gaming community as they explore its potential.
- ▪The Steam Controller sold out within half an hour of its release.
- ▪It can play a Wilhelm scream if dropped from a height.
- ▪The controller's haptics can be manipulated to play MIDI audio, although no games currently utilize this feature.
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| Original publisher | Boing Boing |
| Canonical URL | https://boingboing.net/2026/05/18/the-steam-controller-doesnt-just-scream-it-sings-too.html |
| Publication time | Mon, 18 May 2026 15:03:37 +0000 |
| Retrieval time | 2026-05-18T15:14:56.631Z |
| Last seen | 2026-05-18T15:14:56.631Z |
| Headline source | Publisher (no WeSearch rewrite) |
| Excerpt source | publisher body |
| Excerpt method | First ~120 words (~800 chars) of extracted publisher body, fair-use limited. |
| Summary | WeSearch · cerebras-chat (WeSearch summarizer) |
| Summary source text | contentText |
| Citation coverage | Summary is a WeSearch-generated derivative; primary citation is the original publisher URL. |
| Cluster | 8Qc67bVAswxP |
| Cluster logic | Grouped by semantic title/content similarity across sources within a rolling window. Same-publisher template collisions are excluded from coverage comparison. |
| Ranking reason | Story pages are not engagement-ranked. Hub feeds use recency, with optional source-diversified chronological ordering (cap consecutive stories per source). No personalized ranking. |
| Publisher visit | Yes — open original |
| Substitutes article? | No — link-out required for full text |
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| Indexing | May the item be indexed (stored, ranked, made findable)? | Allowed |
| Snippet | May a short excerpt of the publisher's text be shown? | Allowed |
| AI summary | May WeSearch generate its own short summary of the article? | Limited |
| Retrieval / RAG | May the content be exposed for third-party retrieval-augmented generation? | Not asserted |
| Model training | May the content be used to train AI models? | Not asserted |
| Commercial reuse | May the content be reused commercially? | Not permitted |
Basis: Derived from the published RSS/Atom feed. Contact: [email protected]. Reviewed: 2026-07-24.
Opening excerpt (first ~120 words) tap to expand
The Steam Controller doesn't just scream. It sings, too Grant St. Clair 8:03 am Mon May 18, 2026 Steam Machine. Image via Valve Valve's brand-new PC gaming controller, the aptly-named Steam Controller, is full of secrets. At that hundred-dollar price point, it better be! Those lucky enough to actually get their hands on it after it sold out in half an hour have already discovered that the controller will play a Wilhelm scream if dropped from high enough. That's pretty cool, but you know what's even cooler? The controller's haptics, if manipulated in just the right way, can vibrate at the right frequency to play MIDI audio fed into it. It's not a stock feature, and no game that I know of actually uses it, but the community has already managed to get their hands all over it.
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