Xbox 360 controller is most used controller on Steam

The Xbox 360 controller is by far the most used controller on Steam. This is according to figures from Valve. In total, more than thirty million players have registered a controller since 2015. Half of them have used more than one.

Valve figures show that a total of 60 million controllers have been used by users on Steam. The Xbox 360 controller accounts for a 45 percent share, followed by the PlayStation 4 controller at 20 percent, followed by the Xbox One controller at 19 percent. The PS3 controller has a 7 percent share and Valve places the remaining 8 percent in the ‘other’ category.

Valve also details what the remaining 8 percent is made up of. It appears that more than 1.5 million Steam controllers are in use, as well as almost 1.5 million unspecified gamepads designed for the PC and half a million Switch Pro controllers. Valve also counts more than 313,000 flight sticks and more than 229,000 rock band instruments. The least popular controller are the so-called dance pads, of which 783 are connected.

The popularity of the Xbox controllers on Steam is probably due to the good support of the controllers in Windows. Ten years ago, Microsoft made its controllers compatible with XInput and many game developers added support for the controllers. PC games with controller support also often show the Xbox buttons on the screen.

Xbox One controllers are also more commonly used than PS4 controllers, Valve shows. Nearly 20 percent of Steam users with an Xbox One controller have used it in the past month. For gamers with a PS4 controller, that is 9 percent.