Retention was another factor, and here we see another display of Microsoft's dominance on the PC marketplace. The number of users wasn't the only metric Valve analyzed, though. 'In May 2018, a Steam update enabled the full feature set of the device, added matching artwork in the UI, and improved the overall experience,' the company said. 'The result was an acceleration in Switch Pro controller registrations.' Fight sticks, Rock band instruments, SNES controllers, and more round out the bottom few spots. Valve credits a recent uptick to an update it made to Steam to support the controller. The Switch Pro is seventh, which is surprisingly high for a device introduced last year.

While Valve's own Steam controller is fifth with 1.5 million users, 'PC Gamepad' (a term that can apply to lots of controllers) is sixth. From there, the steep drop-off continues, and becomes more vague. These controllers are likely the most popular due to their relatively ubiquity, compatibility. Fourth is the PS3 controller, oddly enough, with 4.1 million users. The Xbox One controller is third, with 11.5 million users. This is surprising since Dualshock 4 compatibility is still on a case-by-case basis in many games, though Steam itself does offer standard compatibility with the controller. That said, while you may have expected the Xbox One controller to be second (it also uses Xinput and is easier to connect on to a PC), the Dualshock 4 is in second place, with 12.2 million users having hooked one up.

It's dominating as the most widely-compatible controller, too, thanks to ubiquity of Xinput, the driver most games use to recognize the controller. Although it's several years old at this point, the two new controllers offer more or less the same functionality, and the differences some of the new options might offer (like the Dualshock 4 and Switch Pro Controller's gyro sensors) going mostly unused in PC games. It should come as no surprise that the Xbox 360 controller remains the most popular controller for Steam users, with 27.2 Million users using it to play all kinds of games on Steam. While some of the results are no-brainers, there are several surprises worth digging into.

Valve has released data surveying all the kinds of controllers players hook up while playing games on Steam, how long and often they use them, and what they use those controllers with.

Best controller compatible steam games