Hasta La Gadget!

Steam is popular platform for gamers when it comes to the PC, and given that Steam supports Windows, Mac, and Linux, we expect that gamers will be varied and running different operating systems. According to a recent hardware survey conducted by Steam, it has been found that Windows 7 is still the dominant operating system when it comes to gaming on the platform, with the operating system commanding a whopping 51.76% of all operating systems currently on Steam. This is an increase of 0.33% from October. However it looks like Microsoft’s Windows 8.1 is slowly catching up and now accounts for 6.34% of all Steam users when combining both the 32-bit and 64-bit versions.

This is compared to back in October when Windows 8.1 users only accounted for 1.92% of all Steam gamers. This also puts them ahead of other operating systems, such as Linux and Apple’s Mac OS X, but at the same time they are still slightly behind Windows XP users, which we’re sure will be changing in the next survey released by them. In the past Valve’s co-founder, Gabe Newell, expressed his distaste for the Windows 8 operating system, calling it a “catastrophe”, which at that time seemed to justify Valve’s efforts at further developing Steam for Linux.

Windows 7 Still Most Popular OS On Steam, Windows 8.1 Catching Up original content from Ubergizmo.

At the end of October, we brought to you news that Steam has over 65 million users now, so it is not surprising to hear about another milestone being achieved – that Steam has now managed to garner approximately 7 million plus users who are online concurrently. This is certainly a record to be proud of, considering how its previous best happened to be a high of 6.6 million users. Steam’s site did point out that it hit 7,190,578 concurrent users mid-morning Eastern Time on December 1, if you want to get all worked up over the details involved. This particular figure happens to be an indication on just how popular the Steam service is, in addition to its growth chart. Who knows, such an encouraging figure might see more and more developers work up an interest as well as appetite for the upcoming Steam Box gaming devices.

Just which is the most popular game over Steam to date? Apparently, it would be Dota 2, which should not arrive as a surprise. Dota 2 managed to touch a peak of 542,906 users simultaneously, while in second place would be Valve’s Counter-Strike: Global Offensive that peaked at 93,905 concurrent users, which so happens to be quite a distance from the top spot. As for the other popular titles, those will include The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, Sid Meier’s Civilization V, and Football Manager 2013. Do you think that the recent Steam sale had something to do with the new peak achieved?

Steam Achieves 7 Million Plus Concurrent Users original content from Ubergizmo.

Valve’s Steam gaming platform has a plethora of games to choose from, and with so many to choose from, how do you know which game is good and worth your money? Of course one could also go online and search for reviews, but wouldn’t it be more convenient if it were all in one place? Well that’s what Valve is looking to do as they have announced the launch of Steam Reviews. This review system is currently in beta and it works almost similar to how app store reviews work for iTunes and Google Play, where gamers can leave their review on the game itself so that when gamers browse the games, they will be able to read the reviews right there and then.

Reviews can only be written by gamers who own the game and have launched it via the Steam platform, meaning that if you did not get the game through Steam, you would not be able to write a review for the game, which we guess is fair since this would basically open up the reviews to trolls and those looking to bash or promote a game unnecessarily, as opposed to providing gamers with a fair assessment of the game. The reviews can also be voted by gamers as to whether a particular review was helpful or not, just like how Amazon’s reviews work as well. Steam Reviews will not be replacing the Recommendation system either, but will instead be rolled into the feature together. For more info head on over to Valve’s website.

Steam Reviews Beta Goes Live original content from Ubergizmo.

Back in March, Valve’s Joe Ludwig mentioned how important the company believes virtual reality tech is but ultimately left us hanging, unable to be more detailed without a firm plan on what it might eventually ship. Next year the blanks will be filled in, as Valve has scheduled two very relevant sessions during its Developer Days conference: What VR Could, Should, and Almost Certainly Will Be within Two Years, and Virtual Reality and Steam. Better yet, the descriptions reveal that it will have a prototype of what stunning experience it thinks “affordable” VR hardware will be capable of soon, and the software it’s working on including “the Steam Overlay in VR, Steam store changes for VR, and our VR plan for Steamworks.”

The Oculus Rift has already done a lot to spark our imaginations and given a platform for developers to test out their VR ideas, but putting the power of Steam behind this tech could push it where next-gen consoles haven’t. After the departure of the castAR team, we’re very interested to see what Valve will do, and its developer days seem like our first opportunity to find out. The two day conference happens January 15th and 16th but it’s only open to developers — if you pop open the registration page anyway we won’t blame you.

Filed under: Gaming, HD

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Source: Steam

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