Even though I have been lurking and involved in the Steam Deck community, they never cease to amaze me. A couple of days ago, we reported on someone who modified their Deck to be a dual-screen device, like the Nintendo DS, and it became a semi-clamshell handheld. And today, I came across another gem. If you are looking for an extra challenge when gaming, you can always try using your old Apple iPod as a controller.

SteamDeckiPodController

Originally posted on Reddit by user nekomichi, they showed it off both playing Sleeping Dogs and Skyrim, which the latter apparently felt much better than the former.

[Follow-up] Tired of playing on your Deck with proper controls? Why not play Skyrim with a pair of iPods as controllers instead? Guaranteed to spice up your gameplay with an extra layer of challenge!
byu/nekomichi inSteamDeck

After seeing how it was done, it seems like it's one of the easier modifications to do than a lot of others, but very hard to actually master using it. Here is a comment they made under the first of two posts showing this off and explaining how they did it:

Both iPods in this video have been modified with the Rockbox custom firmware, which allows them to act as USB input devices.

The iPod Mini on the left is acting as a mouse cursor controlled by the four directional keys with the centre button acting as a left click (attack), the iPod 4th generation on the right is acting as a multimedia controller, with fast forward acting as taking a step forward and rewind as taking a step back. Due to limitations in the firmware, it's not possible to send button-hold commands which means in order to continuously walk forwards I have to mash the fast forward button repeatedly. Also the Click Wheel is faulty and detecting ghost scrolling, in multimedia mode that controls the volume which is why the Deck's volume keeps jumping up and down randomly.

nekomichi - Reddit Post

While I don't have iPods to try this out with, I am definitely tempted to just see how difficult it is to use. Even though I am not surprised, seeing this kind of stuff still amazes me, especially since I would have never imagined trying to turn iPods into controllers to begin with. Either way, there's a reason I love this community, and nekomichi embodies one of those reasons.

この記事を楽しんでいただけたなら、SteamDeckHQ の他のコンテンツもチェックしてみてください！あなたのゲーム体験に役立つこと間違いなしのゲームレビューやニュースを幅広く取り揃えています。ニュース、ヒントやチュートリアル、ゲーム設定やレビューをお探しの方も、最新のトレンドを知りたい方も、ぜひご利用ください。

ノア・クペツキー
4歳の頃からゲームが大好きだったノアは、ゲーム業界への愛と情熱とともに成長してきた。そこから、彼はよく旅行するようになり、携帯ゲーム機やPCゲームに喜びを感じるようになった。Steamデッキがリリースされたとき、すべてがピンときた。
蒸気プロフィール