There has been a debate going on for many years as to the best method of playing video games. While some might point to the convenience of gaming on consoles like the PS5 or Xbox Series X, others will say that PC gaming is superior, championing its easily upgradable parts and increased visual fidelity. Despite it seeming like these gaming experiences are wholly different from one another, it appears that this gap is slowly closing over time in an interesting way.
Valve recently put out a new post on Steam stating that the number of players using a controller rather than mouse and keyboard is rapidly growing. According to Valve, the number of daily average users playing a game on Steam with a controller has more than doubled over the past two years. It went on to say that games that are “controller friendly” can easily see 60% of players or higher using a controller in-game, with certain genres, like skateboarding games, sporting well over 90% of their player base using a controller.
This information came by way of a Steamworks post announcing that the Steam Input API now has PS5 controller support. This support includes everything from LED, trackpad, rumble, and gyro features. The PS5’s DualSense has proven quite popular with players that have been able to secure the console, and having added support on PC’s will likely only improve that popularity.
Players on PC seem to be rapidly adopting PlayStation controllers as well. According to the Steamworks post, the use of PlayStation controllers on Steam has grown from 10.9% to 21.6% over the past two years. And with first-party PlayStation titles like Death Stranding and Horizon: Zero Dawn slowly coming to Steam’s massive marketplace, it seems likely that this percentage will continue to rise in the coming years.
Of course, there is likely a big portion of PC players that will never adopt a controller into their regular gaming routine. MOBAs and RTS games in particular do not seem to generally lend themselves well to controller play. Valve attempted to bridge this gap several years ago with its Steam Controller, however, it seems many players found this to be a clunky experience and elected to switch back to the traditional mouse and keyboard.
While some using a controller on PC games is starting to become more common, it seems there has been little advancement in the opposite direction: the use of mouse and keyboard on consoles. There are some titles, like Hypnospace Outlaw on Switch, that support a mouse and keyboard, but these appear to be few and far between. It seems that players may just have to wait until their favorite control type is supported, regardless of what they play on.
Source: Steamworks
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