Steam Gamers Make Windows 10 Third-Biggest OS

Steam gamers flock to Windows 10

If you’re a PC gamer, chances are you’re a Steam gamer, and as it turns out, if you’re a Steam gamer, there’s a good chance you’re a Windows 10 user now as well. Already, just over a month since the release of Microsoft’s new operating system, an impressive 16.39 percent of Steam gamers use the 64-bit version if the new OS, while another 0.63 percent use the 32-bit version.

This is up more than 13 percent in the last month alone. In the first few days after the July 29 debut, just over 3 percent were Windows 10 users. Despite concerns of compatibility issues with certain software, it seems that PC gamers have been willing to make the jump to a new standard.

What’s perhaps more interesting from these stats — garnered from Steam’s hardware survey — is where those new Windows 10 users are coming from. While it may have seen a 13 percent upswing in the last 30 days, Windows 7’s 32- and 64-bit variants saw a combined drop of just 5.79 percent. In comparison, Windows 8.1’s various versions dropped by almost 8 percent.

All other Windows operating systems saw downturns, with XP losing another few hundredths of a percent, though surprisingly Vista 64-bit saw a slight increase in its adoption this month.

Of all the operating systems to pick …

It appears alternative operating systems may be on the rise too. Both OS X and Linux distributions of various kinds saw increases in player numbers throughout August. The former saw the most adoption — and some migration to, from other versions — with OS X 10.10.4 64bit, though 10.10.5 was also popular; giving OS X a total of 3.22 percent of all Steam users.

In comparison, Linux has just shy of one percent of the audience, with Ubuntu’s 14.04.3 LTS 64-bit distro seeing the biggest growth in recent weeks.

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