14 DAY TRIAL // The free Windows 10 upgrade promo that Microsoft offered in the first 12 months after the launch of the operating system had a massive contribution to its growth, especially in the gaming industry where the majority of users upgraded their computers.
On Valve’s Steam, for example, Windows 10 improved at a really fast pace, overtaking Windows 7 as the number one operating system for PC gaming.
But figures provided by the company for the month of January 2017 reveal something that almost nobody could see coming: Windows 10 has started declining just when it was so close to reaching 50 percent share.
Specifically, Windows 10 dropped 0.48 percent last month to 48.49 percent, but it continues to remain the preferred desktop operating system right now on the gaming platform. Windows 7 64-bit is the runner-up with 29.74 percent, up 0.72 percent over the previous month, while Windows 8.1 64-bit is far behind with 8.14 percent, down 0.31 percent.
The 32-bit version of Windows 10 lost market share as well and is currently at 1.18 percent, down 0.04 percent from December 2016.
Windows 10 Creators Update to boost Windows 10 adoption
Overall, Windows continues to be the top desktop operating system for gaming, and it actually experienced an increase of 0.04 percent last month to 95.79 percent.
The upcoming Windows 10 Creators Update is expected to generate a new increase in terms of Steam share for the operating system, as it will bring several gaming improvements, including a so-called Game Mode that would optimize available resources for bigger frame rate.
The Game Mode is already implemented in the existing preview builds of Windows 10 Creators Update, but it should only be released to everyone with the Creators Update. At this point, it’s still in its early days, so it makes almost no difference in terms of gaming performance, but Microsoft promises that when it becomes available for stable users, noticeable boosts should be observed.
In the meantime, the number of users who pick Windows 10 for gaming is apparently declining, but it’s hard to believe that Windows 7 itself would ever return to being the leading choice for Steam users.