Gamers love Windows 10 — usage soars to nearly 28 percent of Steam users

By Jon Martindale Published November 2, 2015

Although gamers don’t fully control the fate of an operating system, they can have a big impact on it. The fact that so many shunned Windows 8 for its predecessor made the more recent OS the butt of many jokes over the years and helped form its reputation as a piece of software not worth purchasing. Microsoft has done its darndest to make sure that doesn’t happen with Windows 10, and the firm seems to be succeeding.

At the latest count, and to be exact, 27.64 percent of all Steam users are running Windows 10 in either 32 or 64bit form. This represents a near three percent growth in Windows 10 usage across October, and also shows the system cannibalizing a percent point from each of Windows 7 and Windows 8.1.

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In fact, when it comes to Steam gamers running Windows 10, the latest iteration of the OS was the only one that saw any growth. All previous iterations still being tracked (all the way back to Windows XP 32bit) saw drops, though none of much more than a single percent.

That said, Windows 7 is still the most dominant gaming OS, with more than 36 percent still using the 64bit version and a further 8.1 percent running the 32bit iteration. It may take more DirectX12-supporting games to be released and a proliferation of supporting hardware to see any further big swings in usage numbers.

Related: Steam gamers flock to Windows 10

By way of comparison, gradual shifts towards more contemporary operating systems in both the Mac and Linux worlds are apparent as well. OSX 10.11.0 64bit saw a 0.56 percent growth spurt last month, with 10.11.1 seeing a smaller 0.15 percent increase.

Based on the stats provided on the official Steam page (via Winbeta), it looks like there has been a very slight shift towards OSX-powered systems on Steam. Don’t expect to notice any large shift there, but the landscape isn’t quite as Windows dominated as it was just a month ago.

Of course the overall percentages are still overwhelmingly in Windows favor. It controls a full 95.39 percent of the market, with OSX representing just 3.54 percent.

Former Evergreen writer

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