After recently tweaking Steam Input and the Steam Client, Valve has now upgraded the main Steam Store to show off controller support for games.
They've updated the main Controller-Friendly Game Hub, allowing you to filter specifically by controller type between Xbox and PlayStation DualShock and DualSense. Making it easier than ever to ensure you're finding games that support your main controller. Example below:
Store pages for individual games also had their controller support status expanded. Down the right-side of pages were features are listed, you'll now see bits like this to indicate what controllers they work with:
There's more too including new search filtering options for specific controller models, Steam Library updates to show controller support more clearly and new filtering for your Steam Library (including for Big Picture Mode).
Speaking about why they're now expanding all this they said there were "over 3 Billion game sessions that included a controller in the past year" and of that 60% were with an Xbox controller, 27% PlayStation and the rest a mixture of Steam Deck, Switch Pro, and hundreds of other controller models. Four years ago that controller gaming session count was only 990 million, so it's a huge increase in people gaming with controllers and back then only 19% were using PlayStation controllers so their popularity has increased a lot too.
What do you prefer to game with?
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
rustybroomhandle Nov 22, 2023
Quoting: CatKillerTechnically it already does: if a developer uses Steam Input for their input handling the game can automatically get whichever glyphs are appropriate for whichever controller is being used, provided it's a controller that Steam knows about (which is all the major ones).
True, but that's only for games with Steam Input. Sadly, it isn't widely used and I wish that Steam would implement an official feature to replace controller textures.
Quoting: PyreticTrue, but that's only for games with Steam Input. Sadly, it isn't widely used and I wish that Steam would implement an official feature to replace controller textures.
The Deck with its heightened importance of mixed input and the shaming of sloppy controller support in the store are the kinds of things that would encourage developers to let Steam Input handle things automatically.
There isn't a general external solution when developers have locked in one set of glyphs: some mods are just going to change the assets, and others are going to be hex-editing binaries, and whatever else they can come up with; not something Steam can do.
hardpenguin Nov 23, 2023
QuoteWhat do you prefer to game with?Steam Controller, obviously 😎. Not even a mention of it in Valve's announcement...
Quoting: dubigrasuI only play with controllers, I wouldn't even know how to play with MKB although I used to, many years ago. I blame the Steam Controller for that, once I got it in may hands I forgot about MKB, is that good. Besides, I'm now a couch player, no place for MKB.Oh I did the same thing myself haven't gamed on MKB for 3 years now since I got rid of the desk and 21" monitor and put in a nice couch and a 50" TV and it's the best thing I ever did I started enjoying gaming much more again like I did when I was younger.
I use a controller from the couch to navigate the desktop as a mouse instead of the Stream Big Picture mode mostly so having the new controller thing saying it supports my Xbox controller in green along with the bar that appears in the library and updates in real time as you connect/disconnect a controller is a clear and welcome reference to see that some older games have native support now and the old little white icon used to be on so many bright backgrounds it was sometimes hard to see.
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