Valve continues to push Steam Input and Steam Deck to encourage more gamepad use on PCs. Last week, they announced some milestones related to this, mainly that 15% of all Steam sessions now use a controller and 10% use Steam Decks. These statistics are available in an official Steam News post.
Controller usage has tripled since 2018 (used to be at 5%); 42% of those controller sessions use Valve's Steam Input layer, and Xbox controllers make up 59% of those controller sessions, making them the most popular controller on Steam. Xbox is the leader of the pack in PC controllers, which makes sense considering how long XInput has been standardized. While support for other vendors has improved significantly in newer titles (esp. PlayStation ports), most games assume you use Xbox layout if you're on a controller.
Valve's news post also highlights recent significant changes to Steam, even on PC, to improve controller support further. These include a Big Picture Mode update that makes it near-identical to the Steam Deck's UI, improvements to controller configuration and gyro aiming functionality, adding Deck Steam Input's virtual menus to Steam on PC, and better driver support for Xbox and PlayStation controllers in general.
Valve's post also mentions the Hori Steam Controller, which it seems is being officially dubbed the Horipad for Steam and is currently still a Japan-exclusive release. A few days after Valve disclosed the new controller statistics on Steam, they also dropped a new Steam Deck Top Played list, which locks in on games being played on Steam Deck and serves as an effective shorthand for how Valve is targeting the console market.
To the surprise of probably no one except Epic Games' Tim Sweeney, for example, the Kingdom Hearts series launched on Steam last month to gangbuster sales after being available on Epic Games for over a year. Matching this, the KH 1.5+2.5 HD ReMix compilation is in Steam Deck's Top 10 Most Played, which recalls the days of Kingdom Hearts spinoffs rather than full remasters being restricted to handheld platforms.
Today, even a humble handheld PC can offer experiences on par with modern consoles, particularly if you're willing to optimize your experience. Steam and Steam Deck even have super-accessible, highly-performant in-game recording functionality now! Valve continues pushing for a yet-bigger place in the PC market via ambitious projects like Steam Deck and Valve Index.
