14 DAY TRIAL // Windows 10 might not be growing at such a fast pace in terms of global OS adoption trends, but as far as gaming is concerned, Microsoft’s latest operating system is improving at full speed.
Data provided by Valve for its Steam platform shows that last month Windows 10 managed to surpass the 50 percent market share, which means that more than 50 percent of the computers running the world’s number one gaming platform are now running this particular Windows version.
Windows 10 64-bit is now powering 50.15 percent of the computers where Steam is installed, while the 32-bit version has a Steam share of 1.05 percent, which leads to a combined share for Windows 10 of no less than 51.20 percent.
And what’s more important for Microsoft is that while Windows 10 is growing, Windows 7 is declining, and only last month, the OS version launched in 2009 lost 1.44 percent for the 64-bit version and 0.63 percent for the 32-bit. At this point, Window 7 has a combined share of 34.74 percent and dropping.
Windows XP also collapsing
Other good news includes the accelerated decline of Windows XP, the nearly 16-year-old operating system that no longer receives support since April 2014. Even though it’s an abandoned product, Windows XP remains among the most popular Windows versions right now, but on Steam it holds a share of just 0.94 percent, down 0.25 percent from the month before.
This means that if the same trend is maintained, Windows XP could be gone completely in just 4 months, though the drop is expected to slow down a little in the next weeks.
As far as Windows’ rivals are concerned, macOS and Linux are still far from posing a threat to Microsoft in terms of gaming, as Apple holds a share of just 3.11 percent, while Linux improved 0.02 percent to 0.77 percent. Ubuntu 16.04.2 LTS 64 bit remains the preferred choice for Linux gamers with a share of 0.22 percent.