Monday, November 6th 2017
Driven by Chinese PUBG Players, Windows 7 Now Most Popular OS on Steam
Steam's October survey has brought with it some interesting tidbits and reversals regarding the state of the world's OS shares. The latest such survey from the company shows Windows 10 lose its crown as the most popular OS for gamers, shadowed by a resurgence of Windows 7. Microsoft may be looking for increased Windows 10 market share throughout the world, but there's one country that has been the most troubling for the company's efforts: China. Remember that Microsoft had to introduce its own China Government edition of Windows 10 to the Chinese government, or otherwise risk the country not to transition to its new OS. However, it seems that that fact has led Chinese people's trust in the Microsoft OS to decrease even more; and absent of access to the China Government edition for regular customers, they're simply choosing to stay within the confines of Windows 7.
All of this seems pretty academic, so let's get some numbers here: Windows 10 shed 17.38% points in October, down to a 28.6 percent share, with the 64-bit version accounting for 28.23% of that share. At the same time, Windows 7 has gained 21.47% points in the same month, climbing to 65.46% of share (63.60 percent for the 64-bit build, and 1.86 percent for the 32-bit edition). Where's the connection to Chinese users here though? Well, take a look at the Steam OS language stats for the same month: simplified Chinese rose by 26.83% up to 56.37%, against a decrease in practically all other languages, and a very considerable 13.4% drop in English.
But where's PUBG in all of this, though? Well, that slight piece of the puzzle you can glean from Steam Spy's analysis of PUBG's player base, which shows an adequate (roughly) 600% percent increase in player count from around 1 million players in August to around 6 million as of October. Around 3.1 million of those entered the scene starting in September. PUBG is simply a phenomenon in China, and Chinese users really seem to be trying to make the most of it while they still can: reports peg the game as being in line for a ban from the Chinese government, as a Chinese Gaming Association has deemed PUBG to go "against Chinese values and ethical norms."
Sources:
Steam Hardware Survey, via TechSpot, Steam Spy, CGICG
All of this seems pretty academic, so let's get some numbers here: Windows 10 shed 17.38% points in October, down to a 28.6 percent share, with the 64-bit version accounting for 28.23% of that share. At the same time, Windows 7 has gained 21.47% points in the same month, climbing to 65.46% of share (63.60 percent for the 64-bit build, and 1.86 percent for the 32-bit edition). Where's the connection to Chinese users here though? Well, take a look at the Steam OS language stats for the same month: simplified Chinese rose by 26.83% up to 56.37%, against a decrease in practically all other languages, and a very considerable 13.4% drop in English.
86 Comments on Driven by Chinese PUBG Players, Windows 7 Now Most Popular OS on Steam
I like Win10, but shame on MS. Shame on the whole tech world rather. Governments are rarely representative. Stop interacting with them.
PUBG= "Player Unknown Battlegrounds" = Casual game Shooter, the "DOTA" of shooters or like overwatch.
www.telegraph.co.uk/gaming/guides/pubg-guide-everything-need-know-playerunknowns-battlegrounds/
well i don't know but windows 7 is okay as an os, but does it throttle newer faster systems?
And rose tinted glasses suck.
I'm pretty cozy with my Win 98 SE.
I'm using windows 10 on my new laptop (HP September 2017 model), it works fine on my laptop even after large updates sofar so I can't complain and I do like it.
I do use windows 8.1 on my main rig though, won't upgrade to 10 this year since I still fear problems after a 10 upgrade....:oops:
Or it might download/install drivers I don't want on my desktop....
And I really don't like the idea of a clean install...:ohwell:
Windows 7 is the new XP, get used to it.
Meanwhile I'm here rocking 10 and its doing just fine, oh well. Note; this is still running from the Windows 7 install of 2013, in-place upgrade to 10, have never clean installed. Had a few bumps with Windows security update recently, which was fixed within 6 days. Beyond that, zero issues.
Thereby I think upcoming AAA titles will still have an option to play it in DX11....No?
I remember all those people panicking about DX12 feature levels two years ago. Look where we are now lol. And even then; there are other APIs now and I don't see DX12 getting widespread adoption, its an afterthought still. Look at Vulkan performance in DOOM - now that's is a type of FPS stability I"d jump to a new API for. DX12? Not so much, unless you run weak systems/mobile systems and want to use UWP stuff on all devices, which is one of MS's pipe dreams that is never going to come to fruition proper.