Valve announced that more and more Steam users are playing with the controller and that this was an opportunity for the company to share new statistics.
According to an official post, the average daily use of controllers has tripled since 2018, from ~5% to 15%. Approximately 42% of sessions with a controller use Steam Input, which allows players to use different types of gamepads. During this time, preferences for controllers have also changed:
- 59% of sessions use Xbox controllers;
- 26% have PlayStation controllers;
- 10% - Steam Deck.
The company also reminds us of some previous innovations aimed at improving the experience of players with the controller:
- new controller configurator that has become much simpler;
- changed and improved aiming with the help of a gyroscope;
- support for the virtual menu in the desktop client;
- improved support for PlayStation controllers, including DualSense Edge and the ability to support third-party controllers created under the PlayStation license;
- Windows drivers that enable more reliable support for Xbox One controllers;
- Big Picture mode update, which completely changed the use of the controller.
At the end of last year, Valve also improved the display of controller support on the game pages in the store. As part of this update, it became much easier for players to find games with full or partial gamepad support and more.
In the new post, Valve also noted that Steam will get support for the Horipad controller, which is described in the official post.