Steam Surpasses Xbox Live With 65 Million Users

[Cognimancer]

Steam Surpasses Xbox Live With 65 Million Users

Steam officially has enough active users to found a small - actually, make that a large nation.

As it turns out, Steam is pretty popular. How popular, you ask? Popular enough that it currently has more active users than the UK has citizens. Valve recently announced that its digital distribution service has over 65 million active accounts, a 30 percent increase from last year. The service's daily peak is around 6 million concurrent users. This count puts Valve way ahead of Microsoft's 110 million worldwide PSN accounts [http://www.xbox.com/en-GB/live].

In terms of other crunchy statistics, Steam's most popular game is Dota 2, clocking in at a daily peak of 500,000 concurrent players. The fact that it's free-to-play might have something to do with that.

Knowing how successful Steam has become in the ten years since it launched, it's not surprising that Valve is pushing to break into other markets. It remains to be seen how popular Steam Machines and SteamOS are with the living room crowd, but if Valve is able to secure even a moderate slice of the console audience, it'll be raking in some serious cash.

Even without a console demographic, Steam already has enough momentum to keep itself going for a long time. If Valve's statistics are anything to go by, it's safe to say that PC gaming is alive and well.

Source: The Verge [http://www.theverge.com/2013/10/30/5045830/steam-65-million-active-accounts-6-million-concurrent-users]

Permalink

 

[sid]

wow, didn't actually expect that. Also how the hell does Sony have twice as many accounts as MS?

 

[Sigmund Av Volsung]

wow, didn't actually expect that. Also how the hell does Sony have twice as many accounts as MS?

[small]...because it's free...[/small]

Also, yay, perhaps now devs will be less dismissive of the pc gaming market.

Perhaps

 

[Xan Krieger]

wow, didn't actually expect that. Also how the hell does Sony have twice as many accounts as MS?

Because their online service is free.
edit: ninja'd be mere seconds

OT: I expected the top game would be something different, never knew what DOTA 2 was till I looked it up today.

 

[Diablo1099_v1legacy]

wow, didn't actually expect that. Also how the hell does Sony have twice as many accounts as MS?

[small]...because it's free...[/small]

Still, there would need to be twice as many consoles in order to get THAT many users.
Unless every PS3 had like 4-5 accounts on it.

OT: W00T! Go Steam! Hellva service!

 

[teqrevisited]

I have to wonder whether the PSN account numbers are skewed by importers such as myself. Though it's probably a combination of that and the fact that they're free to create in the first place.

 

[Cognimancer]

wow, didn't actually expect that. Also how the hell does Sony have twice as many accounts as MS?

Because their online service is free.

Xbox Live is free too, not everyone has Gold. Not sure whether Microsoft's count included Silver accounts or not, but it might.

Sony's big advantage is that PlayStation absolutely dominates the Asian market. Xbox can barely even compete there, and that's a massive audience.

 

[fix-the-spade]

wow, didn't actually expect that. Also how the hell does Sony have twice as many accounts as MS?

Still, there would need to be twice as many consoles in order to get THAT many users.
Unless every PS3 had like 4-5 accounts on it.

PSN works across the PS3, 4, PSP, Vita and Sony smartphones/tablets. You can access it from any Android device too, but how well it works (or doesn't) is variable.

Xbox Live is on the 360 and Xbone.

Xbox Live accounts are free too, you just have to fork out for Gold to make them do anything useful...

 

[Adultism]

wow, didn't actually expect that. Also how the hell does Sony have twice as many accounts as MS?

Because their online service is free.

Xbox Live is free too, not everyone has Gold. Not sure whether Microsoft's count included Silver accounts or not, but it might.

Sony's big advantage is that PlayStation absolutely dominates the Asian market. Xbox can barely even compete there, and that's a massive audience.

Wait what? Alright well Xbox live is not free, online is disabled if you are silver basically cutting you out of half the game market these days. Basically its saying if you don't pay you don't play, Huge difference. You can't call it true free like the PSN which offers amazing deals if you want to pay. Its like if steam made your account only work in offline mode unless you forked out 60$ a year.

 

[hazabaza1]

wow, didn't actually expect that. Also how the hell does Sony have twice as many accounts as MS?

[small]...because it's free...[/small]

Still, there would need to be twice as many consoles in order to get THAT many users.
Unless every PS3 had like 4-5 accounts on it.

Not that unusual. Most people in a household want their own account so if it's a family console it can probably have an average of like 2-5 accounts.

 

[Jadak]

Wait what? Alright well Xbox live is not free, online is disabled if you are silver basically cutting you out of half the game market these days. Basically its saying if you don't pay you don't play, Huge difference. You can't call it true free like the PSN which offers amazing deals if you want to pay. Its like if steam made your account only work in offline mode unless you forked out 60$ a year.

You're missing the point. Nobody is saying that XBL free is good, go be angry about that somewhere else. This is a discussion simply about number of accounts. The only point being made is that since you can have an XBL account without going gold (this is the case for myself), and anyone with an Xbox likely has one, the payment requirement isn't the main factor keeping the number of accounts down.

 

[Atmos Duality]

Also, yay, perhaps now devs will be less dismissive of the pc gaming market.

Perhaps

Nope.

Only way that's going to happen is if the both next gen consoles bomb.
Badly.

 

[webkilla]

I for one welcome our new Gaben overlord

 

[romxxii]

Also, yay, perhaps now devs will be less dismissive of the pc gaming market.

Perhaps

Which devs are dismissive of the market? Last I checked, even holdouts like Capcom and Square Enix are releasing PC ports. In the case of Squenix, the dev teams they assign to do said ports aren't even being lazy about it. Just check out the PC version of Tomb Raider.

 

[Sigmund Av Volsung]

Also, yay, perhaps now devs will be less dismissive of the pc gaming market.

Perhaps

Which devs are dismissive of the market? Last I checked, even holdouts like Capcom and Square Enix are releasing PC ports. In the case of Squenix, the dev teams they assign to do said ports aren't even being lazy about it. Just check out the PC version of Tomb Raider.

Activision and Ubisoft mainly(in AC1-Revelations, you had to hold two buttons to sprint(rmb+space), only now do we start seeing pc exclusive features and less severe delays).

They do have a lot of pull though, and when I meant "dismissive" I meant as in, they don't see it as a large market and that most of us are scumbag pirates who would pirate every single game in existence.

 

[aelreth]

I wonder how many of those Xbox Live accounts are actually PC gamers that are forced to utilize it under Games for Windows Live.

 

[GAunderrated]

Also, yay, perhaps now devs will be less dismissive of the pc gaming market.

Perhaps

Nope.

Only way that's going to happen is if the both next gen consoles bomb.
Badly.

They don't have to bomb, they just have to stay as stagnant as they have been for the past 3 years which judging by their initial performance seems very likely.

 

[romxxii]

I wonder how many of those Xbox Live accounts are actually PC gamers that are forced to utilize it under Games for Windows Live.

Probably not a lot, seeing as how GFWL is shutting down, and publishers are already migrating their games to Steam. I just got a Steam key from WB Games for Arkham City GOTY, since I bought my B:AC retail.

Activision and Ubisoft mainly(in AC1-Revelations, you had to hold two buttons to sprint(rmb+space), only now do we start seeing pc exclusive features and less severe delays).

They do have a lot of pull though, and when I meant "dismissive" I meant as in, they don't see it as a large market and that most of us are scumbag pirates who would pirate every single game in existence.

Activision? They own Blizzard,who still owns a majority share of the MMO and RTS markets. Ubi, on the other hand, has relented long ago, dropping their much-reviled always-online DRM after AC:Bro-hood. Even Uplay will go offline without any issues, making it a workable -- if highly clunky -- Steam clone.

I'd say if there are any publishers who still treat PC gamers like thieves, it'd be EA. The evidence speaks for itself: the always-online component for SimCity (which they still haven't given up on), the hideous microtransactions for full-price games, their refusal to sell their games on Steam just so they can jack up prices at Origin, the stupid web browser front end for the Battlefield series. God, I hate EA. At least Ubi tries to balance out their shittery with the occasionally good game.

 

[aelreth]

I wonder how many of those Xbox Live accounts are actually PC gamers that are forced to utilize it under Games for Windows Live.

Probably not a lot, seeing as how GFWL is shutting down, and publishers are already migrating their games to Steam. I just got a Steam key from WB Games for Arkham City GOTY, since I bought my B:AC retail.

While I rejoice at the departure from GFWL (hopefully it won't be seen in Titanfall) our accounts still exist and are likely counted to boost confidence in shareholders.

 

[Adultism]

Wait what? Alright well Xbox live is not free, online is disabled if you are silver basically cutting you out of half the game market these days. Basically its saying if you don't pay you don't play, Huge difference. You can't call it true free like the PSN which offers amazing deals if you want to pay. Its like if steam made your account only work in offline mode unless you forked out 60$ a year.

You're missing the point. Nobody is saying that XBL free is good, go be angry about that somewhere else. This is a discussion simply about number of accounts. The only point being made is that since you can have an XBL account without going gold (this is the case for myself), and anyone with an Xbox likely has one, the payment requirement isn't the main factor keeping the number of accounts down.

Sigh, I was confused and I can see by your passive aggressiveness you are angry that I disagreed with you and still do points towards fanboyism. I was just saying I don't consider it free unless its FREE. You can disagree all day but multiplayer is part of the games package and not letting me play co-op with my buddies because I refuse to pay some money is not FREE. Calm down and think. I also once thought that paying 60$ a year to play multiplayer was a fair feature, I remember those sad naive days. I can explain it another way if you wish. Imagine you have a full packaged game with multiplayer and tons of features, but wait! Instead the makers of the console decide to lock you out of half the game and its featured content because it might be co-op related. You can go around screaming UMAD all day at people but when it comes down to it logical thought triumphs over hatred and biased opinions.

OT: Never surprised that steam is ahead. I've been following them since I was kid and will probably get their console too. I tried Xbox and got bored of it and I feel that the Xboner is a step in the wrong direction and the PS4 seems like the PS3 sooooo.