It’s taken nearly three years, but PC gamers are now finally ready to crown a new champion. According to the latest Steam Hardware Survey for August 2024, Windows 11 is now the default choice for gamers, knocking Windows 10 from the top spot for the first time since 2016.
Windows remains the dominant platform on the whole with a 96.78% overall share of users running Windows 11, 10, 8, and 7. Support for other platforms, including macOS and Linux, remains reasonably steady, but still with under 3.22% of the total market share. That includes users running the default Linux-based SteamOS on the Steam Deck. SteamOS might be great on a Steam Deck, but the best gaming PCs are still running Windows (for now, at least).
As Windows 11 approaches its third birthday, though, there’s a clear sign that Microsoft’s efforts to migrate users to its newest OS are finally working. The August Steam Survey shows a 3.36% increase in Windows 11 users, taking it up to 49.17% of the total. This matches a nearly equal loss in Windows 10 support by 3.07%, taking the total share of users on that platform down to 47.09%.
Steam support ended for Windows 7 and 8 users back in January 2024, and while a committed 0.44% of users are still clinging to those platforms, that’s now a tiny proportion of the total. With just over a year to go until Windows 10 support ends, and with each new gaming PC sold, I’m expecting to see the support for Windows 10 drop steadily over the next twelve months. This two-horse race is hotting up, but with a new race leader now in front.
Celebration for Microsoft, then, but it’s a long time in the making. Windows 11’s launch wasn’t a roaring success for gamers, with performance issues and new hardware requirements, such as TPM 2.0 chip support, putting users off if they had older hardware. Even free upgrades to Windows 11 haven’t been enough to push some gamers to move on, at least until now.
Microsoft isn’t afraid to gatekeep its best and latest features on Windows 11 to force the issue, either. DirectStorage, a technology from Microsoft that cab rapidly speed up game loading times and improve gaming performance on PCs with the best gaming SSDs, works on Windows 10, but receives the best enhancements on Windows 11.
If you’re planning to build a gaming PC today, you’re now best advised to install Windows 11, as Microsoft is only going to support Windows 10 with security updates until October 2025.