Steam Developer Days have started, and Valve has taken this opportunity to announce that Steam is getting enhanced DualShock 4 support in the next client update.
The news come from a transcript of Jeff Bellinghausen (Valve) and Lars Doucet's (Level Up Labs) presentation, where they talked about the benefits of supporting the PlayStation 4 controller via the Steam Controller API. They made it sound so simple:
"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. Now, why start with the PS4 controller? 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."
So, what does this actually mean? In short, that you'll get to tailor our Steam games to use Sony's DualShock 4 in a variety of new ways. You'll be able to rearrange the controls to your liking from the Steam client, use the touchpad and gyro features, and much more.
Bellinghausen and Doucet also said that other controllers will get similar support in the future, so Xbox One players will probably get to use their controllers as well fairly soon. Are controllers something you'd be interested in?