Windows just saw a dramatic drop in OS market share on Steam as gamers move to Linux

The Steam Hardware & Software Survey results for March 2026 are now available, and as we've gone over the big movements in the GPU space, there is one other notable shift worth digging into. And it arrives in the OS space, with Linux crossing the 5% market share barrier for the first time. According to the results, 5.33% of Steam gamers on PC are playing on Linux, with SteamOS being the number one distro.

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And with that, Microsoft's Windows market share has dropped to 92.33%, with Windows 11 retaining the top spot as the most popular OS among PC gamers on Steam, with a 66.85% market share. Although Windows 11 saw the biggest shift, gaining 10.57% in March, Windows 10 saw the biggest drop, losing almost 15% of its market share, bringing that figure down to 25.36%.

Steam Hardware & Software Survey results tend to fluctuate from month to month because Valve samples only a portion of its 130+ million monthly users. However, with the SteamOS-powered Steam Deck and the upcoming Steam Machine both being Linux-based, the non-Windows platform for PC gaming is definitely gaining traction, especially when you factor in several other gaming-focused Linux distros, like Manjaro, growing in popularity.

Of course, with 90+ percent of PC gamers running Windows, it's the dominant platform by a wide margin, but as public perception of Windows 11 as a stable and viable gaming OS has dropped considerably in recent years, more and more gamers are looking elsewhere. Which means what we're seeing here is exactly that: some PC gamers are deciding not to upgrade from Windows 10 to Windows 11, but instead to give Linux a go.

It'll be interesting to see how this plays out, as Microsoft has recently committed to "fixing" Windows 11. At the same time, its next-gen Xbox Project Helix console will be a PC-console hybrid, running a version of Windows optimized for PC gaming. Whether this will be enough for Windows to maintain its massive lead remains to be seen, as SteamOS is gaining traction and game publishers like EA and companies like NVIDIA are investing in Linux as a gaming platform.