14 DAY TRIAL // New statistics provided by Valve’s gaming platform Steam for the month of April 2016 show that Windows 10 has become the preferred operating system for PC gamers across the world, overtaking Windows 7 and achieving a new personal record.
Specifically, the 64-bit version of Windows 10 is not only the leading choice for gamers on Steam, but also the operating system that experienced the biggest growth last month.
At this point, Windows 10 64-bit is running on 38.18 percent of the PCs with Steam installed, an increase of 1.36 percent from the previous month. Windows 7 64-bit has fallen on the second place with 32.53 percent, this time down 0.81 percent. Windows 8.1 64-bit is third with 11.89 percent, a decrease of 0.97 percent versus March.
This is living proof that more and more users are making the switch to Windows 10, taking advantage of Microsoft’s free upgrade offer that ends on July 29.
What’s surprising is that old operating systems such as Windows XP and Vista are still among the most used gaming platforms for Steam users, despite the fact that Microsoft has pushed everyone to newer versions such as Windows 8.1 and 10. DirectX 12 doesn’t seem to be reason enough for some people to upgrade though, as 1.60 percent of Steam users are still on Windows XP 32-bit, while 0.22 of them stick with Windows Vista 32-bit.
Non-Windows operating systems
Overall, despite the growth experienced by Windows 10, the combined Steam share of Windows has actually declined during the month by 0.33 percent to 95.43 percent.
On the other hand, Mac OS X has actually improved in April by 0.31 percent to reach 3.57 percent, another personal best for Apple’s platform. The growth was driven by Mac OS X 10.11.4, which increased by 0.78 percent to achieve 0.94 percent Steam share.
Linux has also experienced a small growth last month, improving its share by 0.06 percent to 0.90 percent. The arrival of Ubuntu 16.04 contributed by a small margin to this increase, adding 0.08 percent to the combined Linux share.
As a conclusion, it’s very clear that Windows remains the leading platform for desktop gaming at this point and it’s hard to believe that anything could change in the coming months and years. Both Linux and Mac OS X are improving in this regard, but it’ll take way too much to gain ground in this business.