Steam breaks user records

As spotted by IGN, Valve’s Steam service recently saw a peak of 7,190,509 concurrent users on 1 December 2013, a new record for the platform.

This can probably be attributed to the ongoing Steam Spring sale, with discounted games luring in gamers.

The previous record was set in October at 6.5-million users, a month which featured the Steam Halloween sale.

Recently, Valve’s Steam user base broke through the 65 million active users mark, making it larger than the Xbox Live subscriber base, but still some way behind Sony’s PlayStation Network. Valve says that this is a massive jump for the company, increasing their user base from approximately 45 million active subscribers in 2012.

In comparison to other online services, EA Origin boasts 50 million users, Windows Live has 48 million while Sony’s PlayStation Network rules with a staggering 110 million accounts.

If you’re of the PC master race persuasion, these ever-growing figures bode well, as Steam has become the benchmark for digital distribution and DRM as a service.

Nvidia also think the PC market is in for a boom as we move into the next-generation of consoles, having said “enthusiast players want the ultimate games system and that is the PC”.

Recent data from UKIE showed that PC is the fastest growing platform in the UK, and a previous research report showed that PC is the dominant gaming platform, globally.