Valve is trotting out some numbers today to reveal just how big it is.
The company’s Steam digital-download service for PC now has 65 million registered accounts. The service also saw a 30 percent increase in active accounts over the last 12 months. That’s more than the 48 million users that have accounts on Microsoft’s Xbox Live online service.
In terms of software products, Valve also revealed that its digital store now has more than 3,000 games on sale.
“The main goal of Steam has always been to increase the quality of the user’s experience by reducing the distance between content creators and their audience,” Valve co-founder Gabe Newell said in a statement.
Valve wants to stress the growth and importance of Steam to the gaming community as it prepares to move into hardware and operating-system software.
In late September, Valve revealed its long-rumored plans for a living-room PC console called the Steam Machine. This is a new, Valve-approved platform standard that will run the company’s Linux-based SteamOS operating system. It’s the Seattle-based developer’s first big effort to untie itself from Windows, which is the dominant OS for PC gaming.
Earlier this month, the company also revealed plans for its inaugural Steam Dev Days conference, which it will hold in Seattle in January. This will bring together developers with Valve engineers and business people to help studios get the most out of the SteamOS, the Steam Machines, and the Steam online service.
“As the platform grows, our job is to adapt to the changing needs of both the development and user communities,” said Newell. “In the coming year, we plan to make perhaps our most significant collaborations with both communities through the Steam Dev Days and the Steam Machines beta.”