Steam's adding official Switch Joy-Con support

Nintendo Switch Joy Con
(Image credit: Nintendo)

The latest Steam client beta has added official support for Nintendo Joy-Con controllers, making it far easier to use Switch-style controls with your PC games.

On August 4, a Steam client beta update went live with two changes, the more prominent of which is this: "Added support for Nintendo Joy-Con controllers, both individually as a mini-gamepad and combined into pairs." The update also notes that Nintendo Online classic controllers now have "improved support."

It typically takes anywhere from a few weeks to a month for a beta update to go live on the main Steam client, so you can expect the feature to be available for everyone fairly soon.

On July 27, Steam added official support for the Nintendo Online classic controllers - the modern bluetooth controllers made in the shapes of NES, SNES, Genesis/Mega Drive, and N64 gamepads which Nintendo sells directly through its own store. Yes, now, with official support for both N64 controllers and Joy-Cons, Steam finally supports all of Nintendo's worst controllers. Well, excluding the Power Glove, I guess.

Steam has had support for the Switch Pro controller for years, and while I'm not personally a fan of the Joy-Cons (even when I'm not suffering from Joy-Con drift), it's good to see more and more console controllers getting direct support for Steam Input. Valve's finally given us the dream land where our DualSenses, Joy-Cons, and Xbox pads can live in harmony.

Check out our guide to the best PC controller for gaming for a full view of all your game playing options.

Dustin Bailey
Staff Writer

Dustin Bailey joined the GamesRadar team as a Staff Writer in May 2022, and is currently based in Missouri. He's been covering games (with occasional dalliances in the worlds of anime and pro wrestling) since 2015, first as a freelancer, then as a news writer at PCGamesN for nearly five years. His love for games was sparked somewhere between Metal Gear Solid 2 and Knights of the Old Republic, and these days you can usually find him splitting his entertainment time between retro gaming, the latest big action-adventure title, or a long haul in American Truck Simulator.

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