Windows Dominates PC Gaming in 2025: Steam Survey Reveals Trends and Future Outlook

Windows continues to dominate the PC gaming sphere, a reality underscored by the latest results from Valve’s May 2025 Steam Hardware & Software Survey. Despite ongoing talk of Linux’s momentum, these numbers paint a more nuanced picture, revealing the challenges faced by Valve’s own SteamOS even as the broader Linux ecosystem edges upward. This detailed analysis offers a critical deep-dive into the latest survey data, examines key trends across all operating systems, and explores what the shifting ground means for gamers, developers, and the future landscape of PC gaming.

Windows 11 on Steam: The Relentless Ascent​

For enthusiasts and casual gamers alike, Windows has long been the default platform for PC gaming—a trend that shows no signs of slowing down. According to Valve’s May 2025 survey data, Windows-powered systems accounted for the overwhelming majority of Steam users, holding firmly in first place. Notably, Windows 11 continues its climb, now powering 58.3% of Steam machines, up from earlier in the year. In stark contrast, Windows 10’s market share keeps sliding, now at 37%, as more users make the leap—or are nudged by hardware and support cycles—toward Microsoft’s latest OS.
The rise of Windows 11 isn’t just about numbers. DirectStorage, Auto HDR, and continual improvements to gaming performance—features either exclusive to or most robust on Windows 11—are increasingly cited as factors in platform migration. Microsoft’s focus on gaming, from integration with Game Pass to UI enhancements for HDR management, means that Windows 11 is no longer competing just on familiarity or inertia. It’s now setting the technical and experiential bar that others must meet.

MacOS: Apple Silicon’s Quiet Ascent​

While Windows remains untouchable at the top, macOS continues to hang on, albeit with a small fraction of the overall Steam population. In the May 2025 report, Apple’s share is relatively minor, yet the internal dynamics are revealing. Apple Silicon, now marked as “VirtualApple” chips in the data, accounts for a staggering 81.69% of all Macs on Steam.
This is a dramatic shift from the Intel era, driven by the MacBook Pro line in particular—over a quarter of Mac Steam users are running on these machines. The dominance of Apple’s own silicon bodes well for the long-term health of Mac gaming (assuming developers continue to optimize for this architecture), but compared to the overall PC market, macOS remains a niche for gaming, its growth primarily a tribute to Apple’s hardware advances rather than a surge in gaming-first adoption.

SteamOS and Linux: Growth, But With Caveats​

Linux as a platform has achieved a milestone: the May 2025 Steam report lists 2.69% of all users as gaming on some form of Linux, up from 1.47% last year and a marked improvement even from April. For years, Linux hovered below the 2% mark, often dismissed as an enthusiast’s curiosity rather than a true rival to Windows. This latest jump—almost doubling year-over-year—is a win for open-source advocates, but the reality beneath the headline is complex.
At the heart of Valve’s Linux strategy is SteamOS, best known for powering the wildly popular Steam Deck. Yet, therein lies a puzzle: “SteamOS Holo” has fallen to 30.95% of all Linux-based systems on Steam, down from 33.78% just a month earlier and well below the peak of 45.34% in May 2024. Most striking, the current figure places SteamOS only about 10 percentage points above its early 2023 low-water mark.
The lion’s share of Linux growth is not coming from SteamOS, but from alternative distributions. Arch Linux, for instance, now holds 10.09% of Linux-based Steam systems. Linux Mint 22.1, a favorite for both new and experienced Linux users, commands 7.76%. These figures suggest an increasingly fragmented but vibrant Linux gaming community, where users look to distros that offer greater flexibility or a more “pure” Linux experience compared to the customized, gaming-centric SteamOS.

Critical Take: Why Is SteamOS Losing Ground on Its Own Turf?​

SteamOS’s slippage carries important implications. First, it complicates the often-touted narrative of a singular “Linux gaming revolution” driven overwhelmingly by the Steam Deck. Valve’s handheld remains a phenomenon, but the software underpinning it is becoming less dominant within its own ecosystem. Why?
Several technical and community factors may be at play:

• Customization & Control: Many enthusiasts buy the Steam Deck or install Steam on their own Linux PCs, only to move away from SteamOS toward Arch, Mint, or even custom spins. These distros offer users granular control over updates, hardware drivers, desktop environments, and pre-installed software—often at the expense of “just works” simplicity.
• Updates & Compatibility: SteamOS, while stable and optimized for the Deck, has a slower update cadence and a more locked-down approach than general-purpose Linux distros. Advanced users who want the latest kernels, bleeding-edge Mesa drivers, or new desktop environments may find SteamOS restrictive.
• Non-Deck Devices: As Proton (Valve’s compatibility layer for running Windows games on Linux) matures and Linux support improves more broadly, DIY desktop and laptop users are running Steam on their hardware of choice, not just the Steam Deck. On these systems, generic distros often make more logistical sense.
• Community Support: Arch and Mint both have large, active user communities, reams of documentation, and well-established support fora—features attractive to newcomers and tinkerers alike.

All these factors combine to create an environment in which the Linux pie is growing, but Valve’s slice—at least the slice labeled SteamOS—is shrinking. This points to a subtle, fundamental difference between “Steam Deck as hardware” and “SteamOS as software.”

The Fragmented Future of Linux Gaming​

The declining share of SteamOS, despite its high profile, underscores a larger challenge: Linux on the desktop is thriving on diversity, which is both its strength and its Achilles’ heel when it comes to mass-market adoption. For every user enthralled by Arch’s rolling updates or Mint’s accessible approach, there are others for whom too many choices (“which distro?” “which desktop environment?”) remain a hurdle.
From a developer perspective, this means gaming studios targeting “Linux” have to grapple with a fragmented user base, each segment with subtly different needs, libraries, and quirks. SteamOS was supposed to offer a stable, unified platform for both devs and users—much as Windows does. In practice, the proliferation of general-purpose distros means the Linux gaming audience, while growing, is still fractured in ways Windows simply isn’t.

CPU Wars: Intel vs. AMD Among Gamers​

Beyond the operating system race, the Steam survey dives into hardware, revealing interesting trends in processor adoption. Intel continues to lead the overall Steam install base, with 59.69% of gamers using Intel CPUs. However, among Linux users—a valuable canary-in-the-coal-mine for hardware trends—AMD dominates, powering 68.77% of Linux-based Steam machines.
This trend stems from AMD’s aggressive development of open-source drivers, robust support for recent graphics APIs (including Vulkan), and competitive price/performance for gamers building or upgrading PC rigs on Linux. For Linux gamers, AMD represents not just value, but a smoother, more trouble-free configuration experience than some recent Intel (and especially Nvidia) offerings.

What’s Driving the Broader Windows Dominance?​

Despite pockets of innovation elsewhere, Windows’ hold on the PC gaming ecosystem remains resolute for several concrete reasons:

• Game Library: The vast majority of new and legacy PC titles are written for, or best optimized for, Windows. DirectX remains the dominant graphics API, giving Microsoft’s OS a technical edge for the latest releases.
• Performance: While Proton and Wine have made impressive strides in running Windows games on Linux and macOS, there are still edge cases, anti-cheat software mismatches, and hardware configuration hurdles that make “out-of-the-box” Windows the preferred choice for hassle-free gaming.
• Ecosystem Tie-In: Features such as Xbox Game Bar, native streaming, and deep Discord/OBS integrations work seamlessly on Windows, encouraging social and content-creation activities alongside gaming.
• Vendor Support: Many hardware manufacturers provide Windows-only system tools, firmware updates, and performance utilities. Even as open-source drivers improve, first-party support remains a Windows stronghold.

Notable Strengths in the Current Landscape​

While the numbers offer a blunt summary, they mask deeper strengths and stories of innovation on all sides:

• Linux’s Renaissance: The uptick to 2.69% in Linux market share may sound modest, but for an OS long dismissed as irrelevant for gaming, the trend is both real and sustainable. Tools like Proton, Lutris, and open-source GPU drivers have changed the game.
• Arch and Mint Momentum: Arch’s surge is especially notable; its rolling release model attracts power users, and the gaming documentation is first-rate. Mint continues to win fans among users who want “Linux, but easier,” suggesting a path for greater future adoption.
• Apple’s Hardware Leap: The fact that over four out of five Mac Steam gamers now use Apple Silicon is a ringing endorsement of Apple’s custom chips. The performance and battery gains, plus Rosetta 2 translation, make the latest Macs viable—if still niche—options for cross-platform development and play.
• AMD’s Open-Source Bet: AMD’s leadership among Linux gamers validates its strategy of embracing open software and Linux-friendly hardware support. For bleeding-edge users, this can be a major selling point.

Potential Risks and Headwinds​

The same trends that power these gains also pose risks:

• Fragmentation: Linux’s greatest asset—choice—is also a major barrier for developers. SteamOS offered a potential standard but has not achieved dominance even among Linux installations. Unless Valve addresses root causes (update cadence, user control), fragmentation may get worse.
• Anti-Cheat and DRM Gaps: Many recent titles fail to launch or run poorly through Linux compatibility layers due to entrenched anti-cheat or DRM technologies built for Windows. Progress is ongoing, but for highly competitive or popular online titles, Linux remains a gamble.
• Windows 10 End-of-Life: As Microsoft phases out support, some users are resistant to switch to Windows 11, either for compatibility reasons or due to hardware limitations. If migration rates slow, we could see a bifurcation of the Windows user base that may complicate game development and support for both indie and AAA studios.
• Mac Growth Plateau: While Apple Silicon Macs are technically impressive, they remain expensive and the overall share on Steam suggests a ceiling. For most gamers, Windows’s flexibility and macOS’s more limited library (partially due to Apple’s sometimes adversarial approach to gaming APIs and standards) keeps Macs on the margins.

The Steam Deck Paradox​

The early days of the Steam Deck built an image of Valve’s hardware and software dominating a new Linux-powered frontier. That picture is giving way to a more complex, paradoxical reality: the Deck continues to sell, but more users are choosing to reflash it with another Linux distribution, or even Windows. This is both a testament to the Deck’s power as a general-purpose gaming PC and a warning sign for Valve’s bid to shape the software ecosystem as tightly as it shapes hardware.
User forums and communities (including the thriving subreddits and forums) frequently discuss switching to Arch, Fedora, or custom distros for use cases such as media consumption, emulation, or productivity. This echoes a broader trend: power users want to unlock the full potential of their hardware, even if that means leaving the stock SteamOS environment behind.

What Does the Future Hold?​

Looking ahead, the trends are clear:

• Windows 11 will continue gaining users as older machines are gradually retired and Microsoft’s ecosystem integration deepens.
• Linux will keep expanding incrementally, mostly among DIY and enthusiast gamers, driven by the Steam Deck, Proton advancements, and growing comfort with open-source.
• SteamOS risks becoming a footnote in Linux’s future unless Valve pivots: perhaps by targeting new devices, improving update flexibility, or making the platform more customizable for savvy users.
• Developers will need to weigh costs versus rewards in supporting alternative platforms, especially as those platforms fragment further.

Conclusion​

The May 2025 Steam Hardware & Software Survey offers both a snapshot and a subtle warning for all OS vendors and the broader gaming community. Windows 11’s relentless rise is no accident—it reflects hard-won technical advantages, ecosystem lock-in, and sustained investment from Microsoft. Mac gaming is in its most promising era, but Apple’s rigid platform approach keeps growth constrained to a well-heeled minority. Linux, buoyed by Valve’s evangelism and open-source fervor, is in its healthiest position in years—but the failure of SteamOS to capture more of that growth is a cautionary tale about the limits of even well-funded, well-intentioned standardization in a valley of choices.
For everyday gamers, these trends boil down to a few key takeaways: Windows remains the most convenient and broadly supported platform. Mac and Linux are increasingly viable for those with very specific hardware—or very particular tastes. And for all the innovation and dreams of easy cross-platform play, the world of PC gaming in 2025 remains, at its root, both as dynamic and as divided as ever.
Those seeking a singular “winner” or magic moment of disruption may be waiting a while longer. In the meantime, gamers—especially those experimenting beyond Windows—should expect continued incremental evolution, not revolution, and perhaps take pride in shaping a more diverse, if messier, future.

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Source: Windows Report SteamOS slips down in May 2025 as Windows 11 keeps climbing, Valve's survey reveal