Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Computing
  3. News

More than 60 percent of Steam gamers have finally moved to Windows 10

By
Razer Blade 2017 review
Bill Roberson/Digital Trends

Despite trailing Windows 7 in overall market share, Microsoft’s Windows 10 operating system is the preferred OS among gamers. Statistics published by online streaming platform Valve revealed that the 64-bit version of Windows 10 accounted for 60.62 percent of the market share on Steam in August, representing an increase of 6.62 percent from a month prior. Microsoft’s Windows operating system commanded a combined market share of 96.44 percent. Valve’s numbers show that Windows 10 is twice as popular as its next closest competitor, Windows 7, which earned a combined 30.93 percent market share for the 32- and 64-bit versions of the operating system.

Only 2.87 percent of Steam gamers use MacOS and 0.59 percent of gamers are playing on a Linux system. The increased adoption of Windows 10 among gamers is likely fueled by upgrades to newer systems with better hardware specifications. Nvidia’s GeForce GTX 1060 GPU, for example, was the most popular graphics card among users, and the card commands a market share of 13.31 percent among Steam gamers. This represents an increase of 0.81 percent from a year prior. Other popular hardware configurations include a 1080p primary display, quad-core processors, and systems with 8GB of RAM or higher.

Recommended Videos

Migration to Windows 10 has been slower by non-gamers — August statistics published by Net Applications revealed that Windows 10 is installed on 37.8 percent of all personal computers and commands a 43 percent market share when compared with other systems running Windows. In contrast, Windows 7 commanded a 40.3 percent market share against all PCs and 45.9 percent market share compared to other Windows-based systems. Analysts now predict that Windows 10 will supplant Windows 7 as the world’s most popular operating system by as early as October, ComputerWorld reported. Combined, Windows accounted for 88.1 percent of the operating system market share, while MacOS had a market share of 9.17 percent.

Related

Although adoption for Windows 10 has been growing among gamers and non-gamers, businesses and enterprises are still stubbornly sticking to Windows 7. Support for Windows 7 will end in early 2020, and Windows 10 adoption will likely accelerate as that date inches closer.

When Microsoft debuted Windows 10, it had lofty aspirations. The company had a goal of a billion Windows 10 installs in the first three years. Microsoft announced earlier this summer that it was shy of that goal, revealing that its operating system was installed on more than 700 million systems. Microsoft’s numbers include a variety of different devices, including convertibles, laptops, desktops, Xbox gaming consoles, Hololens, and even the now-defunct Windows 10 Mobile platform that was used on the company’s Lumia-branded line of smartphones.

Editors' Recommendations

Topics
Chuong Nguyen
Chuong Nguyen
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Silicon Valley-based technology reporter and Giants baseball fan who splits his time between Northern California and Southern…
Windows 11’s new update cadence finally makes sense
The Start Menu pulled up on the Surface Pro 8.

Alongside the announcement of its first major update to Windows 11 (known as the Windows 11 2022 Update), Microsoft is also dispelling some of the rumors about its update cadence for the operating system.

In a briefing held with the media, the heads of Windows 11 marketing team reaffirmed the commitment to a single, large update each fall, but with smaller "controlled feature rollouts" (CFRs) popping uo throughout the year as needed.

Read more
Top 10 Windows shortcuts everyone should know
An individual using a laptop's keyboard.

Windows shortcuts are a constantly-used feature by practically all PC users. Apart from saving you time from carrying out the specific command without having to perform a few extra clicks on your mouse, it’s simply more convenient to refer back to shortcuts via your keyboard.

Although you may be satisfied with the Windows shortcuts you already know about and utilize on a daily basis, you can enhance your general Windows experience in a big way with these 10 shortcuts everyone should know.
Ctrl + Z
Tired of always having to use your mouse to find and click the Undo button on a program like Microsoft Word or, say, entering details on a website or editing images? Ctrl + Z will basically undo whatever your last action was, providing you a convenient way to reverse edits and changes within a second. From personal experience, this shortcut proved to be especially useful for productivity applications.
Ctrl + Shift + T
We’ve all been there. Nowadays, our browsers are inundated with multiple tabs, and as such, it’s hard to keep track of at times. Eventually, you’re going to close a tab on accident when trying to select it. Instead of trying to remember what it was or spending a few seconds accessing it and reopening it via the Recently Closed feature (on Chrome), simply hit Ctrl + Shift + T to restore the last closed tab. Similarly, Ctrl + N will open a new tab.
Alt + Tab

Read more
After 10 years of headaches, I’m finally a believer in Windows on ARM
The Microsoft Surface 3 with its blue keyboard.

Almost two years in, Apple is on the verge of completing its transition to ARM. It might surprise you to know, then, that Microsoft started its own journey to ARM chips long before Apple.

But Windows' support for ARM has been far less smooth. There aren't many more Windows devices with ARM chips than there were five years ago -- and I can attest to having personally used every failed attempt along the way.

Read more