Windows 10 adoption passes Windows 7 on Steam

Valve updated its Hardware & Software Survey today for May, revealing that there is a new top dog in the Steam gaming community: Windows 10. The latest and greatest from Microsoft is growing quickly, but on the whole it’s still below 20 percent market share. Gamers tend to be early adopters, however — on Steam, the figure is already over 40 percent.

In its first month, Windows 10 adoption on Steam passed Windows 8, Windows Vista, Windows XP, Mac OS X, and Linux. After two months, Windows 8.1 was also conquered, leaving just Windows 7. 10 months in, Windows 10 has dethroned Windows 7.

Here is Steam’s operating system market share list for May 2016:

• Windows 10: 41.48 percent
• Windows 8.1: 11.45 percent
• Windows 8: 1.62 percent
• Windows 7: 38.60 percent
• Windows Vista: 0.31 percent
• Windows XP: 1.90 percent
• Mac OS X: 3.67 percent
• Linux: 0.84 percent

We wouldn’t be surprised if Windows 10 passed the 50 percent mark before the end of the year. In fact, all other Windows versions are losing adoption on Steam, meaning Windows 10 saw big gains in May.

Breaking down the numbers even more, here is how each operating system version fared:

Between April and May, Windows 10 jumped 1.97 percentage points — a decent increase 10 months after release. These gains have to come from somewhere: Windows 8.1 dropped 0.78 points, Windows 8 slipped 0.13 points, Windows 7 fell 0.94 points, Vista dipped 0.02 points, and XP slid 0.13 points.

On the whole, Windows still dominates Steam. OS X gained 0.10 points while Linux slipped 0.06 points each in May, but these are minor changes. While the three operating system families fluctuate from month-to-month, Windows has been above the 95 percent mark on Steam for as long as we can remember.

Windows 10 was installed on over 75 million PCs in its first four weeks. It passed 110 million devices after 10 weeks, 200 million in under six months, 270 million after eight months, and most recently 300 million after nine months.

Microsoft is aiming for 1 billion devices running Windows 10 “in two to three years.” It’s still too early to say whether it can hit that target, but gamers on Steam are certainly doing their part to help.