Is Steam now bigger than XBox?

Don't look now, but Valve's Steam gaming service may have overtaken Microsoft's Xbox in terms of active users, a tech site reported Thursday.

 

Valve reported a 30-percent growth in active accounts in the last 12 months for Steam, which it said now has 65 million accounts.

 

"Now offering over 3,000 games and software titles to over 65 million accounts, 2013 also marked Steam's 10-year anniversary of providing services to gamers," it said in a news release, which was posted on tech site Engadget.

 

It added Steam added new service features last year, including Family Sharing, Steam Trading Cards, Early Access, and support for Linux titles.

 

For its part, Engadget said the increase of 15 million accounts over the last 12 months should put Steam's userbase "well above that of Microsoft's Xbox live."

 

"(That puts) the service's userbase well above that of Microsoft's Xbox Live (which has 48 million, according to MS). Not quite the 110 million that belong to Sony's PlayStation Network, but not too shabby," it said.

 

The Steam gaming platform caters to PC, Mac, and Linux users.

 

2014 plans

 

For 2014, Valve aims to expand Steam's services to gamers and developers by holding the Steam Developer Days in Seattle, Washington this January.

 

It will also roll out the recently announced Steam Machines with hardware partners later in the year.

 

Valve co-founder and president Gabe Newell said that as the platform grows, "our job is to adapt to the changing needs of both the development and user communities."

 

"In the coming year, we plan to make perhaps our most significant collaborations with both communities through the Steam Dev Days and the Steam Machines beta," he said.

 

Hardware beta

 

Meanwhile, Engadget noted Steam's figures came ahead of Valve's upcoming hardware beta that seeks to test the the company's living room push, including SteamOS, Steam Controller, and Steam Machines.

 

SteamOS is a Linux-based operating system for the gaming PC and may be preinstalled on the physical Steam Machines with the Steam controllers. — TJD, GMA News