∞ Mac grabs more than 8 percent of Steam market in first few weeks

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According to Valve Corp.’s Steam Hardware Survey, Mac computers already comprise 8.46 percent of Steam clients in the software’s first few weeks of availability.

Steam is Valve’s popular game software delivery service. Steam operates on millions of PCs around the world, and in mid-May the company released a Mac version of Steam. With it, Valve has produced Mac-compatible versions of its popular games including Portal and Half-Life 2, and promises to treat the Mac equitably with the PC going forward. Steam is used by third-party software publishers, some of whom are also publishing games for the Mac.

Valve’s Steam Hardware Survey is compiled from data collected from individual Steam users. “The survey is incredibly helpful for us as game developers in that it ensures that we’re making good decisions about what kinds of technology investments to make,” reports Valve. Data collected include the type of CPU, graphics hardware, memory configuration, graphics capabilities, numbers of CPU per machine, and operating system type, among many other items.

With Steam’s arrival on the Mac in mid-May, the May Steam Hardware Survey is the very first to feature Mac-specific information. Macs are identified in the report as either running Mac OS X 10.6.3, 10.5.8 or 10.6 – 6.73, 1.40 and 0.33 percent, respectively.

The majority of Steam users – 32.89 percent, overall – use Windows XP running in 32-bit mode. Windows 7 in 64-bit mode makes up the second most-popular operating system with 24.77 percent.


  • http://intensedebate.com/people/zwei zwei

    Well, that means there are more than 8% actually playing on a Mac (if they are just taking into account which OS is running the Steam app). Lots of us still have to use Boot Camp because of the outdated graphics drivers in OS X.

    The good part about it is I'm not going to be worried about buying games on Steam anymore. Knowing that my next Mac will be able to play all all of the games natively makes me crap-my-pants happy.

    The BAD part about it is the next Mac coming into our house is likely going to the wife. ;( …unless she goes for an iPad.

  • Kane

    Also interesting is that if you add Windows 7 x64 and Windows 7 x86 together, you have over 35% of Steam users using WIndows 7, which is higher than Windows XP.