No More Finicky DualShock 4 Plugins on PC: Official Support Coming Thanks to Project xCloud

November 15 marks the six year anniversary of the release of the PlayStation 4. That also makes it the six year anniversary of the DualShock 4. For all that time, Sony's controller hasn't been officially supported on PC.

That'll all change next year thanks to Project xCloud's arrival on Windows 10. On stage at X019 in London, Microsoft announced that official support for the DualShock 4 and other Bluetooth controllers will be added in 2020, as part of the effort to expand the reach of Microsoft's game streaming service.

I think it's a rather comfy controller (I have an adapter right in front of me that lets me use it with my Nintendo Switch), and a lot of other people think so too. Steam added support for the DualShock 4 in 2016, and Apple TV added support for the DualShock 4 alongside the Xbox One controller ahead of Apple Arcade's launch earlier this year. Even without official support, our sister site Eurogamer still gives the DualShock 4 the runner-up slot in its list of the best controllers for PC players.

Hopefully the official support for DualShock 4 on PC covers all the controller's special bells and whistles, like the touchpad, vibration, and motion controls. If DS4Windows can get all that stuff functioning, why not a Microsoft-certified solution?

Seeing Microsoft loosen its grip on the PC controller domain reminds me of the debut of the Xbox Adaptive Controller, which made me hopeful that open controller support—a boon for accessibility even without adaptive features—would become more and more common. While we're still probably a ways off from directly using an Xbox controller on a PlayStation or vice versa without a workaround, it's nice that PC players will have one less plugin to deal with soon.