Valve officially released its latest Hardware and Software Survey, revealing that Windows 10 gained heavy traction among Steam gamers.
Microsoft's new OS is now the most-used operating system on the Steam gaming community, topping even the beloved Windows 7. Nevertheless, Windows 10 still has less than 20 percent market share on the whole.
The Hardware and Software study Steam released back in October 2015 listed Windows 10 with a 25 percent share, trailing only Windows 7 at that point.
Fast-forward to the present and Windows 10 has now climbed to more than 40 percent, coming out on top as the most widely used operating system among Steam gamers. The fact that gamers are typically early adopters likely helped its cause a great deal.
Based on the latest Steam market share survey for May, Windows 10 holds 41.05 percent, Windows 8.1 holds 11.40 percent, Windows 8 has a meager 1.66 percent, Windows 7 sits at 39.02 percent, Windows Vista is nearly inexistent with 0.30 percent, while Windows XP still powers 1.96 percent. When it comes to other operating systems Steam gamers use, Apple's Mac OS X holds 3.60 percent, while Linux powers 0.84 percent.
At this rate, Microsoft's latest Windows 10 could soar past the 50 percent mark by the end of the year, while all other previous versions seem to be losing steam. Previous Windows versions declined, as follows: Windows 8.1, 0.78 points; Windows 8, 0.13 points; Windows 7, 0.94 points; Windows Vista, 0.02 points and Windows XP, 0.13 points.
Overall, it's clear that Windows is still the dominant platform among Steam gamers, and this trend shows no signs of slowing down. OS X and Linux did gain 0.10 and 0.06 points, respectively, but they're still trailing far behind Windows OS versions. That's no surprise, however, as Windows has powered more than 95 percent of devices on the Steam platform for ages.
Microsoft recently released the Windows 10 Insider Preview Build 14352, adding Cortana Groove support, a new icon for File Explorer and more, but the company is still getting slammed for its aggressive practices to promote the OS.
Not too long ago, the infamous Windows 10 upgrade prompt interrupted a live TV weather forecast, as if we needed more proof of Microsoft's relentlessness. Still, Windows 10 is currently installed on 300 million active devices, so Microsoft's efforts did not go unnoticed.
Gamers on Steam seem to be making up a hefty part of Windows 10's user base, and surpassing Windows 7 is no small achievement.
