Valve has announced that Steam will now show controller support information in the Steam library and store for DualShock and DualSense controllers. This is in addition to the Xbox controller support that was already available. This means that PlayStation Controllers can be used in your games on Steam.
According to the news post, these changes will make it easier for players to find games that work well with their controllers. said that there were over three billion game sessions that included a controller in the past year and that 60% of those sessions used an Xbox controller. PlayStation controllers accounted for 27% of controller sessions, and the remaining 13% was made up of other controller models.
On top of making sure PlayStation controller owners could play their games, Valve added some new features:
- A new Compatibility Section in the Steam library that shows information about the game’s compatibility with your controller.
- New Device Filters that allow you to find games that work well with DualShock and DualSense controllers.
- A Controller Configuration Button is always available next to the settings button for individual games.
Valve also notes that there has been a significant increase in the use of PlayStation controllers on Steam over the past four years. They say that the number of controller sessions using PlayStation controllers has increased by 4x in that time period.
Players are clearly interested in using controllers to play a huge variety of games. In fact, around 12% of all active players on Steam are regularly using a controller. Some individual games can see the majority of their players using a controller. For example, many popular ball sports games can have well over 80% of their players using controllers, while many popular punishing RPGs have more than half their players using controllers.
When looking at them, be sure to know the difference between full and partial controller support. Steam generally aims to provide Full Controller Support, which means that you can do most of what you could do with a controller. Whenever a game instructs you to push a certain button on your controller, the game must display the right button icons on the screen.
In some games, you can play with a controller except for some interactions that require a keyboard or may show the wrong button prompts. This is partial controller support. Partial Controller Support games may occasionally require you to use a mouse and keyboard to navigate a launcher, enter text, or use optional features like level editors, but otherwise support controller play.
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