this post was submitted on 27 Apr 2026
265 points (99.3% liked)
Steam Hardware
21909 readers
599 users here now
A place to discuss and support all Steam Hardware, including Steam Deck, Steam Machine, Steam Frame, and SteamOS in general.
As Lemmy doesn't have flairs yet, you can use these prefixes to indicate what type of post you have made, eg:
[Flair] My post title
The following is a list of suggested flairs:
[Deck] - Steam Deck related.
[Machine] - Steam Machine related.
[Frame] - Steam Frame related.
[Discussion] - General discussion.
[Help] - A request for help or support.
[News] - News about the deck.
[PSA] - Sharing important information.
[Game] - News / info about a game on the deck.
[Update] - An update to a previous post.
[Meta] - Discussion about this community.
If your post is only relevant to one hardware device (Deck/Machine/Frame/etc) please specify which one as part of the title or by using a device flair.
These are not enforced, but they are encouraged.
Rules:
- Follow the rules of Sopuli
- Posts must be related to Steam Hardware or Steam OS in an obvious way.
- No piracy, there are other communities for that.
- Discussion of emulators are allowed, but no discussion on how to illegally acquire ROMs.
- This is a place of civil discussion, no trolling.
- Have fun.
founded 4 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Maybe a stupid question, but could this work with a playstation too?
Almost certainly not natively. It might have a fallback to an XInput mode, in which case it could work with an adapter (but without the back buttons, gyro etc).
No, as confirmed by Gamers Nexus. Steam Deck doesn't either. Personally, I think it's bad to have the requirement of Steam as a driver but there are also plenty of alternatives out there, so I'm not starting a riot over this.
According to Jeff Grubb at his video around the 20 minutes mark We've Been Using the Steam Controller! | Giant Bomb Review Discussion the Steam Controller will work as a regular controller without Steam being open. Steam itself is not required to use the controller, it just adds additional non standard features when open, such as customization and gyro. Sounds like without Steam being open it acts similar to a Xbox controller. But for that case there would be no need to pay 100 Dollar / Euro.
I wish though there was a more universal driver and software to that can be installed to run in the background, without Steam. So I agree with your sentiment, but just wanted mention that the controller is still (partially) functional without Steam. My suggestion is to buy the Steam Controller only, if you want to use it with Steam (duh!).
Then Jeff and GN should fight it out because they're clearly making contradicting statements. I only have a Deck and an original Steam Controller 2015 and neither act as an Xbox controller without Steam.
I did not say it acts as a Xbox controller, but said similar to a Xbox controller.
Thanks for the insight!
Not natively, because Sony has a mandatory certification program for wireless controllers.
In theory you make it emulate a PS controller, or you can use a USB receiver like XIM MATRIX or do a ridiculous workaround like connect it using Playstation remote play. Maybe somebody will reprogram the included adapter to work with PS5.
Maybe as a mouse. It's the same as with the Steam Deck: Without Steam running, it acts as a mouse NOT as a game pad. It required games to be launched from Steam to use it as a game controller.