The adoption of Windows 8 and Windows 8.1 by gamers has broken 21 percent for the first time, up from 20.06 percent for December, according to the latest figures from the Steam Hardware & Software Survey. Last month, Windows 8.1 systems made up 10.75 percent, with Windows 8 existing on 10.56 percent of reporting systems, though this is still far behind the older Windows 7.
Computers running Windows 7 decreased 0.31 percent to a still dominant 63.04 percent, reports The Next Web, with similar drops noted for Windows Vista and Windows XP, at 4.30 percent and 6.25 percent respectively. The decreases in Vista, XP, and Windows 7, as well as the 0.58-percent drop for Windows 8, suggests players are moving over to Windows 8.1, though it will take some considerable movement in order to overtake Windows 7.
Operating system usage on Steam, January 2014
Though OS X lost 0.21 percent of Steam usage share, reaching just 3.47 percent of systems, the Mac-specific usage shows OS X Mavericks to be the most used version, covering 61.4 percent of the Mac user base. In terms of hardware, the MacBook Pro is extending its lead by 0.46 percent to 54.29 percent of Mac users, with systems reporting as iMac down 0.31 percent to 23.2 percent.
Overall use of Linux on the service hit 0.86 percent, also a drop of 0.21 percent. Though Valve Software does point out some individual distributions in the list, there is not yet a specific listing for the company’s SteamOS.
