Three years after its release, Windows 11 has finally become the most popular operating system – for gamers.
According to the Steam hardware survey for August 2024, Windows 11 has finally unseated Windows 10 as the most popular option for players, with 49.17 per cent of players using the newer software.
Each month, Steam owner Valve releases documentation detailing how the millions of Steam users play their games. And, until relatively recently, the rapidly ageing Windows 10 was by far the most popular brains for gaming PCs.
So why did it take so long for gamers to get on board with the newer version? Windows 11 launched with a bunch of teething issues for players but, three years on, is now considered on-par with its predecessor. And, well, we imagine lots of players take the “if it ain’t broke” approach to upgrading their system software.
Steam’s latest figures may also challenge some preconceptions you have about gaming. Only 1.3 per cent of steam users play using the OSX software of MacBooks and iMacs, for example.
Meanwhile, a mere 0.16 per cent of players use Arch Linux, which is the basis of the software used in the Steam Deck, despite that handheld selling millions of units.
As has been the case for a long time now, the most popular graphics card is the Nvidia RTX 3060, released in 2021.
This month has also seen a significant shift in the language used by players. And we’re not talking swear words.
Mandarin and Standard Chinese has leapfrogged English as the most popular language, with 35.03 per cent of players compared to 31.17 per cent.
Black Myth: Wukong undeniably had a hand in this.
The game was released on August 19, sold more than 10 million copies within three days, and broke records as the single-player game with the most concurrent players on Steam, ever. It hit a peak of 2.41 million, according to SteamDB.
This figure throws shade on Bethesda’s once highly anticipated Starfield, which peaked at 330,000 players at its launch in September 2023.
Black Myth: Wukong also helped Steam break its own record, with more than 37 million people using the platform at the same time on August 25, the first Sunday after the game’s release.
