They say that the true measure of the success of a desktop OS is its acceptance among gamers. If the gaming community is onboard, enthusiasts and regular folks soon follow.
There used to be days when version of Windows failed to gain traction among PC gamers.
But those days are long gone.
The latest data from the gaming platform Steam shows that Windows 11 continues to steadily grow among gamers. The Steam Hardware and Software Survey for April 2022 had the operating system gain some 2.06% to hold almost 19% of the market.
18.94%, to be precise.
This came at the expense of other versions of Windows, understandably.
The 64-bit version of Windows 10 remained the most popular choice among this user base, holding a commanding 73.55% of the market, down 1.14%. Likewise, the 64-bit version of Windows 7 came in at third, with a steadily declining share of 2.93%, substantially down 1.21%.
All this meant that Windows maintains a crushingly dominant position of 96.31% on Steam, though the platform itself went down 0.26% in April.
In terms of the competition, both macOS and Linux remain extremely rare and scarce among PC gamers on this platform. The Apple desktop operating system has just a 2.55% share, up 0.12%, while Linux currently holds 1.14% of the market, also increasing 0.14%.
Of course, this steady growth of Windows 11 among gamers is a sign that gamers are more willing to make the upgrade from previous versions of the operating system, compared to regular customers, at least.
This is, obviously, helped by the gaming improvements Microsoft baked in Windows 11, plus the availability of new hardware that benefits from the optimizations in the OS.
The overall global market is not too far behind, as the latest numbers show that Windows 11 is also hovering around the 20% mark. But this performance from the gaming segment shows that these users are more willing to make the jump.
