Steam Deck Stick Drift Will Be Fixed in a Patch, Says Valve

ign.com:

Valve has acknowledged early reports of 'stick drift' on Steam Deck, thankfully saying that this is a "deadzone calibration issue" that should be fixed by a new firmware update.

Stick drift is an issue that affects many gaming controllers, in which the controller registers left or right stick inputs that are not actually being put in by the player. Reports of stick drift issues on Steam Deck began spreading yesterday, March 1, and many worried that this was a hardware issue, as it appears to be in the likes of Nintendo's Joy-Con controllers.

Thankfully, Valve says this is a firmware issue, and a fix has already been applied. In a statement to IGN, a Valve spokesperson wrote:

"The team has looked into these reports and has determined there was a deadzone calibration issue introduced in a recent firmware update. We have just shipped a fix to address the problem, and the team will continue to watch for reports related to this issue."

IGN has not been able to independently confirm that the fix is effective, but multiple users on Reddit have since said that it has fixed their issues. However, some – like Reddit user Stijnnl – think the current fix has been to simply add a larger deadzone to the controllers, effectively increasing the amount of stick movement needed to begin registering as an input.

While this may fix the problem, it also likely reduces Steam Deck's ability to register smaller stick movements. It's not clear if this is a final fix for the issue, or if Valve aims to continue working on it – we've contacted Valve for comment.

Valve has been aware of the issue of Stick Drift since the console's announcement, telling IGN that it had been working to avoid any issues in that area since early in the design process.

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