The PlayStation DualShock 4 is one of the best controllers on the market right now. With tight grips, well-spaced buttons and an ambitious touchpad (which admittedly doesn’t usually do that much), it’s the perfect way to navigate most PS4 games. The only trouble is that it’s been a pain to use on PCs — until now.
Valve recently revealed that full Steam support for the PS4 controller is on its way, removing one more barrier of entry for console players making the jump to PC gaming.
Jeff Bellinghausen revealed the information during a presentation at the Steam Dev Days conference. In a much larger and wider-ranging lecture about the Steam Controller, he mentioned in a somewhat offhand fashion that the PS4 would soon get native Steam support. Up until now, players have had to use workarounds to use a PS4 controller for Steam titles.
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“Soon we will be shipping an update that adds full configurability to controllers other than the Steam controller,” Bellinghausen said. “That means that players can pair their PS4 controller directly to their PC and use all the configurability options available to the Steam Controller, including the use of the PS4 touchpad and gyro.”
Bellinghausen showed off footage of a player using the PS4 controller for DOOM (2016) on Steam to prove his point.
Full Steam support for the PS4 controller will play nicely with another recent development on Sony’s part. Sony recently released a USB dongle that lets players hook up PS4 controllers wirelessly to their PCs. Whether Sony knew that the Steam update was coming is anyone’s guess; even without it, players can still use the PS4’s Remote Play feature on PCs, which allows them to stream games to their computers.
Bellinghausen did not say exactly when this update would arrive, so players eager to ditch their third-party software shouldn’t uninstall it just yet. Furthermore, a lot of PC games are optimized for Xbox 360 or Xbox One controllers, so using a PS4 controller will take a little bit of tweaking at first. For example, if a game prompts you to use the “A” button, you’ll have to press “X” instead, or else reassign it. Newer games may provide native support for both peripherals, as well as the Steam Controller.
