Nintendo Switch Pro Controller Now Works in Steam Beta

The Nintendo Switch Pro Controller now works with PC games on Steam. Valve, the company behind the popular PC gaming platform announced support for the Nintendo Switch Pro Controller via the Steam beta client. It features support for its gyroscope as well. However getting it to work isn't as straightforward as plugging your Nintendo Switch Pro Controller into your PC though, like you would for an Xbox One Controller. Here the process requires you to download the Steam Beta client and create a config file to get started. Perhaps a short term workaround until it works natively with Steam in a future update. That said, here's what you need to do to get it working.

How to use Nintendo Switch Pro Controller with Steam

1. First, opt into the Steam Client Beta.
2. Enable support globally by checking the Nintendo Switch Configuration Support option in the Controller Settings page.
3. The Controller Settings page also contains a global option to Use Nintendo Button Layout. This will swap the A/B and X/Y buttons of your loaded config – something that will come in handy if you choose a Steam Controller, Xbox, or standard template config.
4. Next, connect your controller and register it to your account when prompted. For best results with the gyro, Valve suggests initially calibrating your controller by selecting the Calibrate option under Detected Controllers.
5. After that, create a config (or load an existing config), via the Controller Configuration option in the Manage Game screen for the title you are playing. The full functionality of the Steam Input Configurator is at your disposal: bind the gyro, add radial menus, create action sets, etc. If you prefer to start from a community config, press X and browse the options.
6. Finally, launch and play your Steam game with your Switch Pro Controller. Bring up the overlay with the Home button to tweak your config on the fly.

This is the first time we're seeing official support for a Nintendo peripheral for games. During the Nintendo Switch's launch it was discovered that the Nintendo Switch Pro Controller could work on the PC.

According to YouTuber Drewoof, it works on the PC via Bluetooth. All that’s needed is to press the button on the top of the controller to allow for pairing which takes around a minute.

Drewoof showed it working on the Dolphin emulator which allows Wii and GameCube games to be played on PC. He also claims it would work in Steam Big Picture Mode, which Valve is only supporting officially now.

Nonetheless, he also warned at the time that games which use the Xinput protocol for controller support like The Witcher 3 and Oceanhorn will not work with the Nintendo Switch Pro Controller without the necessary drivers or software. Games that use the DirectInput protocol like Duck Game worked fine however. This seems to have been resolved with Valve stepping in.

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