14 DAY TRIAL // With Windows 10 almost here, only few users are still looking for new computers to work and/or play, and just as expected, Windows 8.1 is the most common choice when it comes to operating systems powering these machines.
And Steam data offered by Valve shows that Windows 8.1 adoption is indeed on the rise, but Windows 7 64-bit continues to be the leading platform among its users.
Right now, Windows 7 64-bit leads the charts with 46.94 percent, up 0.27 percent, followed by Windows 8.1 64-bit with 29.47 percent, up 0.74 percent.
The third place goes to Windows 7 32-bit with 10.33 percent, down 0.19 percent, followed by Windows 8 64-bit with 3.35 percent, also down 0.09 percent, and Windows XP 32-bit with 3.29 percent.
Windows 10 is far behind, but that’s not surprising at all. Windows 10 is still in development and it’s not in any way supposed to be used as the main machine for gaming, so the 0.73 percent share of the 64-bit version pretty much makes sense. Still, it’s an increase of 0.03 percent, so adoption is on the rise here too.
Mac and Linux still less relevant
Adoption of Mac and Linux-based systems for Steam gaming has been increased lately, but this new round of stats for April 2015 shows that they both remain very far behind Windows.
Right now, Windows has a total share on Steam of 95.81 percent, which means that nearly 96 percent of the systems used for playing games on Steam are powered by Windows. Mac OS X powers 3.16 percent of these PCs, while Linux is running on just 0.94 percent.
Needless to say, Windows was, is, and will remain the number one gaming platform for many years from now, and with the improvements that Microsoft is making in Windows 10, it’s hard to believe that this could change in the long term.