Valve's bizarre, new controller for SteamOS. (Valve)

That must be the feeling at the Bellevue-based video game company, after its third public announcement in just five days.

Best known for developing the best-selling Half-Life franchise, Valve has finally decided to wield its clout as the proprietor of Steam - the world's most popular digital distributor of video games - to make serious inroads into the living room.

With over 50 million users, Steam has come of age and is ready to mature into a viable alternative to competing services such as Xbox Live and PlayStation Network.

It started on Monday with the announcement of SteamOS, a Linux-based operating system optimized entirely for gaming and built for living room devices. SteamOS will be available for free to both users and manufacturers, a striking departure from Microsoft's steep licensing fees.

SEE ALSO: The Future Of Gaming Is... Linux?

SteamOS will ship with over 200 games available at launch and will be able to stream the existing Steam catalog of over 3,000 video games from a networked PC or Mac.

On Wednesday, Valve announced the worst-kept secret in the video game industry: a SteamOS-powered "Steam Machine" that would challenge living room incumbents Microsoft and Sony. The unexpected twist was that there would be no single device, but an army of different specced units constructed by third-party manufacturers.

Steam Machine owners will be able to modify and upgrade the hardware components. The company is projecting that the machines will hit retail channels in 2014.

The most exciting development was saved for today, when Valve unveiled its unorthodox input device, the Steam Controller.

The Steam Controller is arguably the most dramatic departure from traditional input design since Nintendo introduced the N64 controller back in 1996. The Steam Controller has no control stick or D-pad, a questionable omission for gaming enthusiasts. Like the SteamOS itself, the Steam Controller will be open source and is "designed from the ground up to be hackable."

Valve built the Steam Controller around dual trackpads boasting a "new generation of super-precise haptic feedback." An entirely clickable, high-resolution touch screen sits front and center. The input device has a total of sixteen buttons. Much to the delight of left-handed gamers, the Steam Controller is completely symmetrical.

It is a marvel of modern engineering, but immediate reactions to the Steam Controller were mixed:

With these intriguing design cues, Valve believes it has bridged the gap between the sensitivity of keyboard-and-mouse controls and the accessibility of a gamepad. If it is successful, the Steam Controller could threaten the monopoly Microsoft has over PC and console gaming input.

Regardless, by readying an army of SteamOS-powered consoles operated by proprietary input devices, Valve will be the first real competitor to enter the living room domain since the introduction of Microsoft's Xbox. If successful, Valve could further push the industry into a digital distribution model that even Sony concedes is inevitable.

Valve says its next step is to ship 300 SteamOS-powered prototypes to select Steam users for beta testing. As the devices materialize on gamers' doorsteps, the industry will undoubtedly be waiting to see if Valve can deliver on the hype.

We can only hope.

Reach Staff Reporter Will Federman here or follow him on Twitter.