The Vote Is In: Steam Gamers Elect Windows 11 But Windows 10 Polls Strong
It's Election Day in the United States and, following mad dashes to the polling booths, it will take some time to determine the results. In the meantime, however, when it comes to two other popular candidates—Windows 11 and Windows 10—we have some figures to share, though you'll have to decide for yourself which one is winning and which one is losing.
Why is that? Put simply, it depends on whether you're looking at the overall landscape where Windows 10 still enjoys a comfortable (albeit shrinking) margin of victory, or in the gaming segment, and specifically in the latest Steam hardware and software survey, which shows Windows 11 gaining several percentage points to claim a wider margin of victory (versus the past couple of months) over its predecessor.
Yes, it's kind of akin (though not really) to comparing the popular vote to the electoral college. Except we're talking about operating systems and not presidential candidates, and the process is far simpler even if just as controversial.
Starting with the popular, er, overall results, the latest figures from StatCounter show Windows 11 climbing from 33.42% at the end of September to 35.58% at the end of October. And if going back to the beginning of the year, Windows 11 ended January 2024 with a 27.83% share of the desktop Windows market (not to be confused with the overall OS market—we're only looking at Windows candidates here).
During that same span, Windows 10 has gone from 66.47% (end of January) to 60.95% currently. Or put another way, Windows 10 enjoyed a 33.05% lead at the beginning of year, which has shrunk to 25.37% when looking at the latest results. The two obvious takeaways there are that Windows 10 is still leading by a fairly wide margin, and that Windows 11 is closing the gap.
Among gamers, Windows 11 is polling much stronger. The latest Steam survey results show Windows 11 accounting for 51.97% of gaming PCs polled, which is a sizable 4.28% jump from the previous month, versus Windows 10 at 45.95%, which is down 2.7%.
The big caveat with Steam's survey is that it is not reflective of every gaming PC that logs into its service. Instead, these monthly results are snapshots of the PCs that it has chosen to ping, and which have opted in to the survey. Gaming trends can and do affect the results, with sometimes wild swings.
Still, it's the best indicator we have of hardware and software trends among actual gamers, with Steam being by far the biggest digital distribution platform for PC gaming. So yes, a pinch of salt is required, but not a spoonful.
It will be interesting to see how things play out in 2025. Microsoft will continue to support Windows 10 at no charge for almost an entire year—through October 14, 2025, after which users will have the option of paying a $30 fee for an extra year of support via Microsoft's Extended Security Updates (ESU) program.
