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Valve will soon roll out a Steam update which enables full customisation to controllers other than the Steam Controller, with the first being the PS4’s DualShock 4, Valve announced at Steam Dev Days yesterday.
“This means that players can pair their PS4 controller directly to their PC and use all the configurability options available to the Steam Controller, including use of the PS4 touchpad and gyro,” said Valve’s Jeff Bellinghausen.
Footage of the DS4 being used to play Doom on Steam was shown to the audience.
The talk was co-hosted by Lars Doucet of Level Up Labs, who went into great detail about the API.
“Believe it or not, when you use the PS4 Controller through the Steam API, it’s exactly the same as a Steam Controller. You make the exact same API calls, you only get actions, not inputs, and the Steam API takes care of everything.”
He also explained why Valve chose to offer support for the DualShock 4 first, over say the Xbox One pad.
“Well, not only is it a really nice, high quality controller, but it’s also got a gyro and a touchpad, so it’s got a lot of overlapping functionality with the Steam Controller. Also, existing native support for the PS4 controller on the PC is a bit weak; in this case Steam itself is communicating directly with the device so everything that’s nice and reliable,” he said.
Whilst the DualShock 4 appears a great fit for Steam, owners of other pads can expect improved support too, but “Valve isn’t ready to announce any devices or dates for those just yet”.
Source: Steam Dev Days via Gamasutra
