Steam rises to 65 million active users, eclipsing Xbox Live

Steam now has more than 65 million active accounts. The figure marks a 30 percent rise in players over the last year. The video game digital-download platform also boasts daily peak concurrent users of more than 6 million.

By far Steam's most-played game is Dota 2, with more than 500,000 daily peak concurrent players. The free-to-play game saw official release this year after a long beta period, and as the sequel to the hyper-popular Defense of the Ancients mod, was quickly exposed to an existing fan base: all of whom need a valid Steam account before playing the game.

Steam is now 10 years old. Valve used its 10th anniversary as a cue to sail into uncharted waters, announcing a new operating system, game controller, and range of gaming PCs in the same year its two major console competitors are releasing new machines. In contrast to Steam's figures, Microsoft's Xbox Live has 48 million accounts — around half of whom reportedly paid extra for a gold subscription to play online in 2010 — and Sony's PlayStation Network claims 110 million.

These networks are not direct analogs to Steam: where Valve's platform is built around the digital distribution of games themselves, Sony and Microsoft's still focus on providing an online ecosystem for games obtained through physical media. But these new figures do suggest that Steam doesn't have to worry about being eclipsed: its users on their own are numerous enough to make the service a worthy competitor. Combine those 65 million accounts with League of Legends' 32 million active and World of Tanks' 45 million registered, and PC gaming looks strong, even in the face of new console challenges

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

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