For what it’s worth, this actually isn’t too bad on the Steam Deck. Controllers are all seen as individual, so you can set players 1-4, rearrange them, pretty much whatever.
It used to be much worse on PC. On Steam Deck now at least, it’s pretty manageable. I imagine this is the same situation for PC now if you’re using Steam
when i have my non-tech savvy friends over, i don’t want to make them sit there for 5 minutes while i try to connect all the controllers, and then make sure the game in question recognizes them all and isn’t trying to map all controllers to one input or something. Maybe it’s gotten better in the time since I last tried, but my experience has not been “2 minutes to run the mapper”. On the Switch, you just press a button on each controller and you’re rolling.
On Steamdeck, I haven’t tried multiple controllers, but with one, it has been rather seamless for both the PS5 and the Stadia controller. They are both Bluetooth, and when I turn them on they just work. That said, the original SteamDeck(which is what I have) doesn’t support CEC or Bluetooth waking, so the Switch wins out on automatically turning on and switching my TV’s input. The OLED SteamDeck is supposed to fix that, but I’m not paying for a replacement until this one dies or a SteamDeck 2 comes along.
i was in your exact situation and only have a Switch because I got it before the Steam Deck was announced.
I will say though: a Switch is way better than a PC for couch co-op games. Setting up multiple controllers on PC games remains a tremendous PITA.
For what it’s worth, this actually isn’t too bad on the Steam Deck. Controllers are all seen as individual, so you can set players 1-4, rearrange them, pretty much whatever.
It used to be much worse on PC. On Steam Deck now at least, it’s pretty manageable. I imagine this is the same situation for PC now if you’re using Steam
Setting up multiple controllers on the Steam Deck is mostly plug and play. At worst you need to run the mapper, which takes all of 2 minutes
when i have my non-tech savvy friends over, i don’t want to make them sit there for 5 minutes while i try to connect all the controllers, and then make sure the game in question recognizes them all and isn’t trying to map all controllers to one input or something. Maybe it’s gotten better in the time since I last tried, but my experience has not been “2 minutes to run the mapper”. On the Switch, you just press a button on each controller and you’re rolling.
On Steamdeck, I haven’t tried multiple controllers, but with one, it has been rather seamless for both the PS5 and the Stadia controller. They are both Bluetooth, and when I turn them on they just work. That said, the original SteamDeck(which is what I have) doesn’t support CEC or Bluetooth waking, so the Switch wins out on automatically turning on and switching my TV’s input. The OLED SteamDeck is supposed to fix that, but I’m not paying for a replacement until this one dies or a SteamDeck 2 comes along.
Ha, I have no friends so couch co-op is out of the question… /s