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Steam shows massive adoption of Windows 7 by gamers
The breakdown shows a lot of statistics, including average processor speed (2.5GHz) and NVIDIA (65%) versus ATI (30%). You can even see the split between 32- and 64-bit versions of Windows 7: if you click 'Windows Versions', all the flavors drop down -- 64-bit has 15.6% of the total share, while 32-bit has 7.45%. In the past month, the Windows 7 64-bit adoption jumped 2.5%, while Windows XP dropped by 3.2% -- a sure sign that gamer geeks are finally migrating away from XP (and that Santa brought them shiny new computers!)
But of course, the best statistic, saved until last like a prime cut of steak, is that Windows 7 (23%) has surpassed Windows Vista (20%)... after just 4 months!
Those gamers sure didn't like Vista. Who can blame them.
[Meanwhile, Sebastian sweats profusely, praying no one adds the 32-bit and 64-bit Vista percentages together...]
Comments
19
Subscribe to commentskojo87Jan 23rd 2010 10:04PM
every time Steam asked me to do the hardware survey i was playing Peggle on my EeePC and not my Phenom II 940, Crossfired HD 4870, 8GB RAM desktop. i was kinda irritated that i did not get to contribute to these stats.
kojo87Jan 23rd 2010 10:05PM
and who has 4 CPUs? where can you even get a mobo for that? i want!
Sebastian AnthonyJan 23rd 2010 10:07PM
I was wondering the same... but it probably means 'cores', because the most popular option is '2 CPUs'.
Curious that it uses the word 'physical' rather than 'number of cores' though.
Probably because each core is identified as a processor, in Windows.
kojo87Jan 23rd 2010 10:09PM
that makes a lot more sense. guess i already fall into that category then :)
The3rdNuisanceJan 31st 2010 12:54AM
http://www.supermicro.com/products/motherboard/Xeon/GC-HE/P4QH6.cfm
4 physical CPU's. Not sure I'd go for it though. Xeon's aren't exactly designed for gaming. Not sure where to buy it either for that matter... hmmm...
AemonyJan 24th 2010 12:28AM
Well, Windows 7 is only 8 % behind Vista if we add them to together, and if we're lucky and the change rates is the same Win7 will probably pass Vista in a few months.
Since both Windows XP, Vista and 7 x64 are rising and the x32 versions are falling (except for Win7) most gamers seems to finally see the time for upgrading their systems. While I don't understand how some still prefer XP x64 before Win7 x64 I'm at least glad to see that the average gamer are moving into the future.
RogueJedi86Jan 24th 2010 1:50AM
The XP x64 users could just be people like me who don't wanna go through the hassle of starting over on W7 without a direct upgrade. I'd hate to go through the process of uninstalling all my programs and copying over EVERYTHING, down to settings in programs, then formatting and importing everything and reinstalling everything else. A power user if you will.
But maybe that's just me.
ProlornJan 24th 2010 7:32AM
@RogueJedii86: I thought "power users" were more likely to be people who *did* reinstall their OS every year or two? For performance reasons and such.
As for XP x64, I was under the impression that driver support was terrible and it never really took off. Why would anyone migrate to it now when much better x64 systems are available?
NotmyrealnameJan 24th 2010 9:56AM
Could it possibly have anything at all to do with the fact that gamers constantly upgrade their computer in order to play the latest games and if you're getting a new computer, you're getting Windows 7.
I'm not impressed with this statistic at all.
In fact, I bet if you go back a few years, there'll be an article on dls that shows Vista adoption among gamers to be higher than any other segment.
Sebastian AnthonyJan 24th 2010 10:05AM
Hehe, I wondered the same thing -- but I don't think it's quite that clear-cut. This is also to do with the latest version of DirectX which is fully-embraced by Windows 7...!
The whole world was quite tentative when it came to Vista, probably because XP was 'so good'.
Eric O.Jan 24th 2010 3:06PM
I'm not sure I entirely agree with that. Gamers are probably more likely to build their own system rather than buy a pre-built computer with an operating system pre-installed on it. Thus, gamers are probably more likely to choose and install the OS themselves.
Stuart HallidayJan 24th 2010 4:45PM
And you think 23% is massive? How quaint.
So 46% is what? Gigantic?
What is 80% then?
tracker1Jan 24th 2010 7:22PM
23% from 0% in market share in under 4 months for an OS is a massive adoption.. if that trend keeps up we'll probably see over 50% of mainstream Win7 use by the end of the year.
xxliquidnrgxxJan 24th 2010 3:57PM
@Eric O.
You're right. Most gamers built their on systems and chose their own OS, myself included. I've been running Windows 7 since the beta, and there's only ONE program that I can't use. Not enough to make me go back to XP.
Also, I did the jump from XP to Windows 7.
nomnomdomJan 24th 2010 11:37PM
"Those gamers sure didn't like Vista. Who can blame them."
That's a pretty pointless gibe that isn't really supported by the data you link to. Vista has 20.71% of Steam users, compared to 17.87% of the global operating system market.
If anything, gamers are slightly more enthusiastic about Vista than general users.
Sebastian AnthonyJan 24th 2010 11:46PM
Nah, that's just because gamers upgrade more often than standard users.
(Or because DirectX 10 isn't available on XP.)
gonintendoJan 25th 2010 8:20AM
I'm a gamer and I'd say that vista has been a pleasure to use. any issues I've had have been because of crappy 3rd party drivers, not the os.
shylorJan 27th 2010 6:28AM
My idea behind the Xp Vista thing was that Xp was the first major OS adopted by consumers. While it was great OS, vista was due to take a hit as people we're afraid to move from what they knew. Next up was Microsoft's poor idea to keep the OS in the dark. Most developers heard to late about it coming out and did not have times to create new drivers and patches for good products. Next major hit to it was the fact that Microsoft was trying to push the market to new levels. I remember our family Xp system had 512MB ram. It ran fine, it was a major system to have 2GB ram. Now you look at systems. I have a nice laptop with 4GB ram running windows 7. If it was not for Vista pushing the market down in prices we would still be at 1 or 2 GB ram.
So I would say the reason Vista was hit was for the lack of time developers had to patch, and the market still being fresh with the requirements Vista needed. Which left a bad taste even after Vista started to caught up at the end.
Windows 7 on the other hand had a long beta so developers were ready and the market was also ready as the cost of making ram and other products are rather cheap now. Thanks to Vista's Fail we now have a OS that makes us smile again when we boot up.
Sebastian AnthonyJan 27th 2010 11:27AM
Yeah, I think you hit the nail on the head :) Cheers for the input!