Steam reveals the most popular gamepads used by PC gamers

Since 2015 Steam has been collecting data on the controllers users plug into PCs to play games. This was part of a bigger program called Steam Input, which allows players to use any controller with any game by mapping keys to regular inputs, such as mouse or keyboard.

According to Valve, this project brought “interesting results” and revealed which controllers are used most often. 

30 million users with controllers

Over the last three years 30 million users registered at least one controller, half of them used more than one.

Between accounts with multiple controllers and controllers that have been registered to multiple accounts, we find that a total of 60 million device-account pairs have been connected to Steam.

Xbox 360 controllers account for 45% of devices plugged into PCs during Steam sessions. It’s not a surprise since Xbox 360 gamepads are relatively cheap, very reliable and use the same controls as Xbox One gamepads for modern generation consoles.

Xbox One controllers occupied 19% and are slightly behind PS4 controllers that hold 20%. Surprisingly, modern generation console controllers even jointly don’t account for a half of gamepads used by players on Steam over the last three years.

Valve brought a separate chart depicting controllers most often used over last 30 days. It shows that Xbox One is the most popular gamepad on Steam with nearly 20%. Switch Pro, Xbox 360 and Steam Controller are all at 12-13% range and PS4 controller is trailing with only 9%. Developers rarely build in PS4 controller support in their games, that’s why the input device isn’t a default choice among Steam players, despite PlayStation 4 being “an extremely popular console with a great controller”.

 The company is surprised by the performance of Switch Pro, with only the newest games supporting it natively.