More Players than Ever Are Playing Steam Games with a Controller

Valve released a new report that provided interesting data on the current player base using and playing games through their digital storefront, Steam. The focus of this latest report from Valve is in relation to players enjoying their games with the use of a controller. 

Additionally, they launched a new update that provided some new features to enhance player experiences when playing games through Steam, especially for players using controller input. Furthermore, Valve has promised to continue providing more support for controller input in the future. Japanese players will receive HORIPAD support, as Steam is getting an official controller made by HORI, which will arrive this summer.

According to the latest Steam report from Vavlve, the average daily controller usage has significantly increased from 5% to 15% since 2018 across all sessions. Speaking of these sessions, 42% have involved the Steam Input system, which allows players to utilize various controllers to play and enjoy games supported on Steam.

Of the various controller types supported on Steam, a staggering 59% of all sessions saw players using Xbox controllers, while 26% of sessions were played with PlayStation controllers. As for the Steam Deck, only 10% of sessions saw players jumping into their favorite games, as Valve added game recording capabilities in the new beta update for the portable gaming device.

As a result, Valve released a new update that aims "to enhance the controller experience" with new and improved features. This includes enhanced support for PlayStation and Xbox controllers, for which Valve has worked with Sony and Microsoft to add these enhanced features, like DuelSense Edge, third-party licensed PlayStation gamepad support, and a new driver better to support the rear buttons for the Xbox Elite controllers.

Big Picture has been redesigned with controller support in mind, aiming to bring "the Steam Deck user experience to the big screen," while the Steam desktop client now has more support for Virtual Menus. Lastly, Valve included a new controller configurator tasked with setting, managing, and editing controller bindings and Gyro Aiming support has been given an overhaul, with "Flickstick functionality in Steam Input" being added in the update.