Steam to Curate Game Support for DualShock & DualSense Controllers

[RossMarBow]

Steam to Curate Game Support for DualShock & DualSense Controllers | TechPowerUp Forums

 

"The Steam store and desktop client will soon be able to help players find games that support DualSense or DualShock controllers. If your game supports either of these devices, you can now enter that information in the Steamworks "edit store" section for your app. Steamworks has a new controller-support questionnaire for developers to better describe the devices supported by the game.

If your game plays well with a DualShock or DualSense Controller (PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5 respectively), you can now specify that information within Steamworks. This is the first step toward helping players find games that support the most commonly-used PC video game controllers. Starting in October, we'll show this information to players in the Steam store and Steam desktop client. Here are more details on this new level of support."

"Important note: Support for DualShock and DualSense controllers isn't automatically assumed if you already have good Xbox controller support. These two PlayStation controllers are pretty different, so if you haven't done specific work to support them, then you almost certainly do not have support for those controllers."

"Why Controller Support Is Important
Over the past few years it has become more and more common for players to enjoy games on Steam using a controller rather than strictly keyboard/mouse. In fact, since 2017, Steam has seen over 87 Million users play at least once using a controller. Among those players, the majority (~69%) have used some version of Xbox controllers, with the remaining being a mix of PlayStation controllers, Switch Pro Controllers, and hundreds of other devices.

But recently we've seen the most growth among players using various types of PlayStation controllers. For example, in 2018, PlayStation controllers comprised about 11% of controller sessions. Fast-forward to today and we now see 27% of controller sessions being played with PlayStation controllers.

How to Support PlayStation Controllers (and many more)
Supporting PlayStation controllers in a game on your own can be challenging, so Steamworks provides some streamlined APIs to help. If you have an existing game with good Xbox Controller support, you might just need to add calls to get the right glyphs to show for players using a PlayStation Controller. If that's the case, check out our Steam Input Gamepad Emulation - Best Practices documentation. Or, if you are starting your controller support from scratch, we've got great APIs that make it easy to support hundreds of different devices with one integration. For an overview on Steam Input support, please check out documentation here: https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/features/steam_controller"