Steam now has 50% more users than PlayStation, and Sony's own decisions might be pushing more players there

[Alfonso Maruccia]

Play Has Many Limits: Recent controversial changes to Sony's business strategy could have a significant impact on PlayStation's future. According to the latest figures, the console business is increasingly becoming a secondary player compared to the much larger PC gaming market. Meanwhile, Steam is generating more revenue than ever, and the worst may still be ahead for PlayStation.

Shawn Layden recently said that bringing PlayStation games to PC was never about money. However, newer estimates of Steam's user base could put the former Sony executive's comments in a different perspective. Companies that do business with PC's most successful digital storefront have access to a massive pool of potential customers – certainly a much larger audience than PlayStation currently offers.

New estimates from analyst Simon Carless suggest that Steam has now surpassed 200 million monthly active users, up from "just" 198 million MAUs during the second half of 2025. By comparison, PlayStation currently has 125 million MAUs. If Carless' figures are accurate, Steam's user base is now more than 50% larger than PlayStation's.

Comparing estimates with official figures is a complex process. Sony officially announced that the PlayStation ecosystem surpassed the 125 million MAU milestone at the end of March 2026. Meanwhile, the latest official MAU data available for Steam comes from a disclosure Valve submitted to the European Union to comply with Digital Services Act regulations.

Valve's disclosure reported an average of 31.1 million MAUs in the EU during the second half of 2025. Carless used that official figure as a foundation, combining it with publicly available data on Steam's global bandwidth distribution. The resulting estimate put Steam at 198 million global MAUs in 2025, with the figure likely increasing further during the first half of 2026.

Steam has become a massively attractive platform for purchasing PC games, and Valve continues to expand its ecosystem-building efforts through hardware initiatives. However, PCs offer a much more diverse consumer experience, where Steam may be the dominant storefront, but smaller competitors such as GOG continue to operate without the restrictions of a walled garden.

As a result, Sony's recent decision to stop producing physical discs for some future game releases could potentially backfire in unexpected ways. Data suggests that physical PlayStation games can often be significantly cheaper than their digital counterparts, while the next PlayStation console is expected to carry an unprecedented price tag due to the ongoing memory chip shortage.

Could the PlayStation 6 lose some of its remaining appeal among a significant portion of Sony's traditional consumer base? A new survey of thousands of "Play" users suggests that nearly half of console enthusiasts are now seriously considering switching to Steam and other PC storefronts.

A new report from Alinea Analytics claims that Steam generated around $11.1 billion in gross revenue during the first half of 2026, representing a 14.5% increase compared to the same period in 2025. Valve's ubiquitous platform is now generating more revenue than it did in 2020, which was considered a particularly strong year for digital sales due to Covid-related restrictions. Additional users migrating from PlayStation could further boost Valve's revenue and contribute to broader growth across the PC gaming market.

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Steam now has 50% more users than PlayStation, and Sony's own decisions might be pushing more players there

 

[The Talking Tech]

No doubt PlayStation since the PS5 it has been making one bad decision after the next with their arrogance and greed.

PlayStation:
Greed Has No Limits

 

[Subset6]

I don’t understand the logic of the argument of switching from PS due to disc policy to another platform whose ecosystem has been physical media absent for a long while now. I think the last PC media I bought was Mass Effect 2 CE in 2010. Just a knee jerk reaction with no real ground to stand on.

If your reason is free online play, well that I can understand.

 

[LordVile95]

Issue is how many of these are alts for F2P games?

 

[The Talking Tech]

I don’t understand the logic of the argument of switching from PS due to disc policy to another platform whose ecosystem has been physical media absent for a long while now. I think the last PC media I bought was Mass Effect 2 CE in 2010. Just a knee jerk reaction with no real ground to stand on.

If your reason is free online play, well that I can understand.

You are not looking at the whole picture...let us explain that to you:

If PlayStation is not willing to keep their older most loyal gamers happy, those that believe on physical media, then those gamers have no reason to stick with PlayStation and might as well buy digital games on superior hardware such as the PC with decades old backwards compatibility and games stores that don't get shutdown as those on PlayStation every so many years.

 

[yRaz]

I don’t understand the logic of the argument of switching from PS due to disc policy to another platform whose ecosystem has been physical media absent for a long while now. I think the last PC media I bought was Mass Effect 2 CE in 2010. Just a knee jerk reaction with no real ground to stand on.

If your reason is free online play, well that I can understand.

The disk thing is just the straw that broke the camels back. They have a track record of taking away things people "bought" and a digital only thing means you can lose access to your games if you get banned for some reason. I wouldn't be entirely against the ban thing, but AI moderation has been banning people for what amounts to a false positive and then you have to go through the customer service process to fight the false ban.

There is the other part that people are starting to get annoyed with ownership and costs. We were promised that digital would be cheaper. Almost from the getgo, that wasn't the case. Digital stores were charging just as much as physical copies. Prices went down for the seller, not the buyer.

I prefer digital ownership, but I actually want to be able to own it. I'm a minimalist and I hate having "stuff" that I don't need around. I'm very big on "if I don't need it, I don't want it". Physical media is just stuff I have to have around and worry about. I'd rather have a NAS filled with games than boxes and boxes of game case and that stuff.

That said, I don't want to "buy" something if someone can just come along and say "actually, you can't have that anymore"

 

[The Talking Tech]

The disk thing is just the straw that broke the camels back. They have a tracker record of taking away things people "bought" and a digital only thing means you can lose access to your games if you get banned for some reason. I wouldn't be entirely against the ban thing, but AI moderation has been banning people for what amounts to a false positive and then you have to go through the customer service process to fight the false ban.

There is the other part is that people are starting to get annoyed with ownership and costs. We were promised that digital would be cheaper. Almost from the getgo, that wasn't the case. Digital stores were charging just as much as physical copies. Prices went down for the seller, not the buyer.

I prefer digital ownership, but I actually want to be able to own it. I'm a minimalist and I hate having "stuff" that I don't need around. I'm very big on "if I don't need it, I don't want it". Physical media is just stuff I have to have around and worry about. I'd rather have a NAS filled with games than boxes and boxes of game case and that stuff.

That said, I don't want to "buy" something if someone can just come along and say "actually, you can't have that anymore"

Let's face it, if you can't touch it, you can't own it!

And that's very true with digital media, the Terms and Conditions specifically says that you don't own the games or movies, you are paying for a temporary license.

In a less greedy world digital media would be transferable, sellable and at all times redownloadable no questions asked.

 

[yRaz]

Let's face it, if you can't touch it, you can't own it!

And that's very true with digital media, the Terms and Conditions specifically says that you don't own the games or movies, you are paying for a temporary license.

I have no moral qualms about just pirating things I lose access to if I already paid for them.

 

[The Talking Tech]

I have no moral qualms about just pirating things I lose access to if I already paid for them.

The high seas is always an option!

 

[m4a4]

I can't say I feel sorry for Sony, they've been the worst of the big 3 this generation (with Nintendo fighting for the top spot). And now that they're getting rid of physical discs so they can better control games on their console, they certainly deserve the dropping popularity.

And then with Steam, they keep doing pro-customer things and providing many optional features that just keep earning goodwill.


I still find it laughable that Sony higher ups got butthurt that (most) PC gamers have a spine, and pulled back from PC instead of treating us better.

 

[texasrattler]

People say a lot things but your avg console gamer isnt going out buying a gaming PC, especially right now. Unless you look for deals or get a deal, decent pcs are $1200 but something good is in the $1500-$2000 range. Above that is really good but for most isnt needed.
Plus they would need to learn how a pc works, it isnt just plug n play on a console.

 

[godrilla]

Now that the handheld pc gaming market is becoming more popular Steam is probably seing significant users who can finally play that backlog of games they purchased during bundle sales that don't require a nuclear reactor to run. Sony on the other hand will charge a premium, subscription fee and tell you you don't own the games you purchased with upcoming ps6 portable so that it can double milk its own user base. Imagine all those games on steam that are perfectly timed to run efficiently on a handheld without breaking a sweat.

 

[brucek]

And mobile has roughly 3x the number of gamers as Steam. But a console is never going to be a PC and a PC is never going to be a phone, and that's largely about factors that have little to do with the price of games on the platform or even gaming at all.

 

[yRaz]

People say a lot things but your avg console gamer isnt going out buying a gaming PC, especially right now. Unless you look for deals or get a deal, decent pcs are $1200 but something good is in the $1500-$2000 range. Above that is really good but for most isnt needed.
Plus they would need to learn how a pc works, it isnt just plug n play on a console.

The ps6 is rumored to cost over $1000. The biggest advantage to consoles used to be the hardware was decently subsidized. I dont think people are going to pay PC prices if the experience is measurably worse

 

[Kirby1]

I don’t understand the logic of the argument of switching from PS due to disc policy to another platform whose ecosystem has been physical media absent for a long while now. I think the last PC media I bought was Mass Effect 2 CE in 2010. Just a knee jerk reaction with no real ground to stand on.

If your reason is free online play, well that I can understand.

PC is an open platform for one. You can make backups of your steam library. Valve has never shutdown a digital storefront. Sony has.

That said, backwards compatibility going forward for consoles will probably be good enough that whatever you can play on a ps4/5 now will work on a PS6, but on PC even Valve has some price competition. Sony wouldn't.

 

[Kirby1]

And mobile has roughly 3x the number of gamers as Steam. But a console is never going to be a PC and a PC is never going to be a phone, and that's largely about factors that have little to do with the price of games on the platform or even gaming at all.

Wut

Playing a game on my PC with a controller and hooked up to my TV, there is literally no difference from a console.

Phones are not even remotely similar in terms of the gaming experience. More "games" in total number, certainly not in terms of what most gamers would consider to be an actual game.

 

[brucek]

Wut

Playing a game on my PC with a controller and hooked up to my TV, there is literally no difference from a console.

Phones are not even remotely similar in terms of the gaming experience. More "games" in total number, certainly not in terms of what most gamers would consider to be an actual game.

I'm talking about the business of the games industry. Enjoy your games however you'd like, and feel free to be as snobby about mobile as you'd like. But for those counting the beans, Steam is not likely to catch mobile gaming's ~10x larger revenue anytime soon, nor is the ability for motivated gamers to hook a PC up to their TV really going to be a significant factor in why there are many more PCs in the world than consoles. Again, these major platform drivers are not even fundamentally about gaming at all, although they end up having a huge effect on the business of gaming.

 

[axiomatic13]

The five or six Playstation exclusive AAA games that are coming in the next 2 years are not enough to get me to give up my 795 games I own on Steam. Sony is high.

 

[Plutoisaplanet]

The disk thing is just the straw that broke the camels back. They have a track record of taking away things people "bought" and a digital only thing means you can lose access to your games if you get banned for some reason. I wouldn't be entirely against the ban thing, but AI moderation has been banning people for what amounts to a false positive and then you have to go through the customer service process to fight the false ban.

There is the other part that people are starting to get annoyed with ownership and costs. We were promised that digital would be cheaper. Almost from the getgo, that wasn't the case. Digital stores were charging just as much as physical copies. Prices went down for the seller, not the buyer.

I prefer digital ownership, but I actually want to be able to own it. I'm a minimalist and I hate having "stuff" that I don't need around. I'm very big on "if I don't need it, I don't want it". Physical media is just stuff I have to have around and worry about. I'd rather have a NAS filled with games than boxes and boxes of game case and that stuff.

That said, I don't want to "buy" something if someone can just come along and say "actually, you can't have that anymore"

Then why would you switch to Steam? Switch to GOG. Then you can actually store backups of any games you bought. No platform "sells" games, only the license to games. That means they can all take away access (whether by shutting down, or some other way). That includes GOG. But possession is 90% of ownership, and that's what GOG offers (DRM-free games).

Anyways, I also think that switching from one digital platform because it no longer offers discs to another that's never offered them is dumb. Nobody even uses them. And if you have, I'm guessing that like me you've found it annoying to deal with.

This whole article is flawed because it never showed a historical ratio between MAU of the two platforms. All we have is two "estimates" from a blog. Meanwhile, we do have historical numbers for PSN MAUs, and these show growth over time. Besides, comparing the lowest of cyclical numbers to some estimate from a blog is definitely cherry-picking and disingenuous. How do we know 1 year ago Steam also didn't have 50% more MAU than PSN?

https://icon-era.com/statistics/sony-interactive-entertainment/

 

[yRaz]

Then why would you switch to Steam? Switch to GOG. Then you can actually store backups of any games you bought. No platform "sells" games, only the license to games. That means they can all take away access (whether by shutting down, or some other way). That includes GOG. But possession is 90% of ownership, and that's what GOG offers (DRM-free games).

Anyways, I also think that switching from one digital platform because it no longer offers discs to another that's never offered them is dumb. Nobody even uses them. And if you have, I'm guessing that like me you've found it annoying to deal with.

This whole article is flawed because it never showed a historical ratio between MAU of the two platforms. All we have is two "estimates" from a blog. Meanwhile, we do have historical numbers for PSN MAUs, and these show growth over time. Besides, comparing the lowest of cyclical numbers to some estimate from a blog is definitely cherry-picking and disingenuous. How do we know 1 year ago Steam also didn't have 50% more MAU than PSN?

https://icon-era.com/statistics/sony-interactive-entertainment/

Because im a linux user and Steam streamlines the process of installing games for me. Also, valve invests heavily in developing Proton so part of every game I buy goes to Proton development. Finally, Gabe gas setup a legal trust to keep valve running in its current form when he dies, its not going to his son. Not saying its impossible for valve to change in the future, but this is as close as we are going to get.

BTW, I can just pirate a game if I really have to. If I paid for a game and I lose access to it then im not worried about pirating it. And ideal solution? No, but it is a solution so im not worried about lossing long term access to my games

 

[Vixiy]

Let's face it, if you can't touch it, you can't own it!

And that's very true with digital media, the Terms and Conditions specifically says that you don't own the games or movies, you are paying for a temporary license.

In a less greedy world digital media would be transferable, sellable and at all times redownloadable no questions asked.

GoG is great in that regard. Unfortunately a lot of games don't make it to GoG

 

[Aolish]

Another person already mentioned it, good point. If PSN users are rage quitting over the loss of physical media than why are they hopping over to Steam? Valve never had any physical media for decades.

 

[Theinsanegamer]

I don’t understand the logic of the argument of switching from PS due to disc policy to another platform whose ecosystem has been physical media absent for a long while now. I think the last PC media I bought was Mass Effect 2 CE in 2010. Just a knee jerk reaction with no real ground to stand on.

If your reason is free online play, well that I can understand.

The PC allows you to back things up, and has competition, both things Sony lacks.

If Sony is insistent on shooting themselves in the foot on physical media, and going forward you must buy digital, why would you not choose the platform with 30+ years of software to buy, with multiple large storefronts, one of which is the gold standard for customer support and cheap games?

Keep in mind as well, unlike Valve, Sony has a track record now of removing purchases from your account. They have also gotten much more ban happy over "negative behavior" and if you get banned, you lose everything you "bought".

I think the better question is: if a PS6 is going to be a closed garden, digital only box, why exactly would I buy one over a PC, which is a open garden, digital only box with far cheaper software?

Another person already mentioned it, good point. If PSN users are rage quitting over the loss of physical media than why are they hopping over to Steam? Valve never had any physical media for decades.

Because the alternative is to walk away from the hobby entirely. In the future, you will have 3 choices for AAA gaming: two of them are locked down, closed source, digital only boxes with a store monopoly and one stagnant performance target, and an open platform that can be configured to a wide variety of performance targets, with multiple competitive storefronts, and the ability to download and crack the games you own to run without DRM.

Its not hard to see how the PC has become much more appealing now.

 

[The Talking Tech]

People say a lot things but your avg console gamer isnt going out buying a gaming PC, especially right now. Unless you look for deals or get a deal, decent pcs are $1200 but something good is in the $1500-$2000 range. Above that is really good but for most isnt needed.
Plus they would need to learn how a pc works, it isnt just plug n play on a console.

You are wrong buddy....there's a tremendous influx of gamers switching to PC for so many reasons, from modding, to in games cheats, to decades of backwards compatibility, I mean the list goes on and on...consoles the moment became more expensive that was the final nail on the coffin for systems that can't even guarantee your games to be there years later when their stores close.

 

[The Talking Tech]

Another person already mentioned it, good point. If PSN users are rage quitting over the loss of physical media than why are they hopping over to Steam? Valve never had any physical media for decades.

If PlayStation is not willing to keep their older most loyal gamers happy, those that believe on physical media, then those gamers have no reason to stick with PlayStation and might as well buy digital games on superior hardware such as the PC with decades old backwards compatibility which games stores that don't get threatened when a PlayStation generation ends.