Daisywheel divides the alphabet into eight groups of four, assigning each letter to a controller face button based on the position of the left-analog stick.

ENGADGET: Steam Big Picture beta hands-on HD

Rather than adopting the tried, true and traditionally inefficient hunt-and-peck alphabet, Valve is introducing Daisywheel -- a familiar looking text entry setup designed specifically for analog gamepads.

ENGADGET: Steam Big Picture beta hands-on HD

It may not be as straightforward as simply selecting a letter from a grid, but over time users who learn to Daisywheel might find sending messages without a keyboard downright tolerable.

ENGADGET: Steam Big Picture beta hands-on HD