But in a short while, it might change…
According to the most recent figures from Steam, Windows 11 is gradually gaining traction with gamers, although overall adoption is still moving along at a rather slow pace.
The latest Steam hardware poll (opens in new tab) reveals that the percentage of gamers utilizing Windows 11 on Valve’s platform has finally surpassed the 20 percent threshold, reaching 21.23 percent to be exact.
With a 1.64 percent gain from the previous month, Windows 11’s market share on Steam has increased by just under 4.4 percent over the last three months, or roughly 1.5 percent each month.
Really, that’s not that wonderful when you consider that at the beginning of 2022, we were already experiencing hikes of up to 2%, with a January increase of 3.4 percent.
Unsurprisingly, Windows 10 continues to be the most popular operating system among Steam gamers, holding 71.26 percent of the market, despite declining by a sizable 2.63 percent this month (losing some market share to Windows 7); however, this will more likely be a reflection of the survey’s make-up than anything else, as it changes every month.
Analysis: Future gaming will see more significant changes.
Of course, we can refer to previous months’ 2 or 3 percent increases, but that was when Windows 11 was still a new platform and actively courting the kind of eager early adopters who are eager to switch when a platform is still sort of hot off the press.
Although recent steady progress has been made, we can’t help but believe that it has been somewhat slow for Windows 11. Some of that might be due to the new OS’s technology not having reached its full potential yet.
Yes, Windows 11 has some new features that are available today and useful, such as Auto HDR, which is wonderful for individuals who have an HDR display, and some modest performance optimizations. However, some of the most significant modifications for gamers, such as DirectStorage, are still in development and are expected to have a considerably greater impact on Windows 11 computers than they will on Windows 10 ones. (Actually, DirectStorage is operational for Windows 11, but no games have yet to take advantage of it; theoretically, Forspoken will be the first to do so in October.)
DirectStorage will be a lot bigger incentive for gamers to upgrade to when it becomes available, therefore in the future, we should witness the return of more significant spikes in Windows 11 adoption. But until then, it’s probable that the OS will continue to grow its user base at a slow and steady rate.
Other statistics point to a slow adoption rate that has gotten a little worse recently outside of the gaming industry. Therefore, the overall picture is one of an operating system that is having trouble adding users at a reasonable rate. In a larger sense, Windows 11 22H2, which will launch later this year, might assist to pique interest a little more by bringing about some important updates.