Most people are in fact not gamers. Like.. at all. And even those that are probably don't own an OLED or mini-LED monitor.
Most people just want a computer that does the word, the chrome and that's about it.
Most people just want a computer that does the word, the chrome and that's about it.
PCs have 43% marketshare in the total game console market. Yes, that includes marketshare against the Nintendo Switch.
There’s a bit of a bubble of non-gaming in this forum, but gaming is definitely a top use case for PCs.
Just walk into your local Best Buy in the laptop section and count up how many of the laptops are marketed as gaming systems. That should give you a rough idea of how many systems are purchased with gaming as the primary intent.
Sure, HDR is a niche at this point in time, but technologies like OLED and mini LED are increasingly common. If you buy a gaming laptop in 2026 at most reasonable price points it’s very likely to have an OLED monitor.
Example: Legion 5a Gen 11 AMD, price on Lenovo’s site is $1500, has an OLED monitor. You can buy OLED gaming monitors below $500 nowadays, so a lot of people upgrading have that as their next upgrade path…if not today, then tomorrow.
On that subject, most people just use the copy of Windows that comes with the computer, so the whole debate about Windows 10 is perhaps not worth having in the first place. Microsoft most likely just misjudged the pace of hardware replacement especially in the AI era where computer sales have slowed.
And how much does that cutting edge tech truly matter for the core game experience. I think the steam hardware survey might have some answers there and can tell us for which level of hardware currently developed games are being optimized for.
And that's just the currently developed ones. Not the massive backlog that existed before OLED or microLED HDR screens.
Tiny group. Tiny.
___
Btw, super lame to try to improve your argument after the fact with edits, but, well. Anyway.
https://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey/Steam-Hardware-Softw...
The cutting edge tech does improve the core experience. Quite a lot. You do have to have the money for it, though, and like anything else, diminishing returns on investment.
Steam hardware survey shows Windows 11 gained 2% this month over Windows 10. That’s a significant rate of change.
I recognize that you don’t like my use of edits, however, they are part of this platform and I’m not using them to diss anyone or engage in any kind of negative conversation. Just trying to make my point and support it.
https://www.demandsage.com/most-played-games-right-now/
Some of it is unclear about multi-platform splits and mobile gaming but I don’t think I’m incredibly far off.
Gamers across all platform estimated at over 3 billion: https://explodingtopics.com/blog/number-of-gamers
I think my mom playing Wordle on her smartphone does indeed make her a gamer.
It's a lot more useful though when words have meaning and we take them seriously, otherwise nothing really makes sense.
Humans by their very nature use games to pass time and stimulate their mind and body, it's one of the most universal things about us.
That game of Wordle my mom plays once per day is probably what keeps her paying a subscription to NYT. That's real money. She'd probably drop the subscription otherwise.
NYT sells a games-only subscription for $50/year, $80/year per family. I think NYT executives would be happy to consider someone who plays games for 5 minutes per day or even 5 minutes per week a gamer.
The $50 I spent on Baldur’s Gate 3 is the same $50 as a year’s subscription to Wordle (and the other NYT games).
“Gamer” may refer to a stereotype but there is fundamentally no difference in concept.
I can plug an OLED display to a fricking Windows XP system with a Maxwell GPU and it'll work perfectly fine as long as it has a goddamn HDMI port. Has nothing to do with OS support.
Yes, the monitor will work but if you want to take full advantage of the panels you enable HDR.
I also focused on OLED because I think it’s a very common way for consumers to have access to HDR, whether it be via a TV or gaming laptop.
Outside of Apple, Mini-LED monitors are a rarity in laptops. Usually manufacturers choose OLED for more mid to premium laptops. Apple is fussy about color accuracy, the other manufacturers want a display that pops on a showroom floor and/or they’re targeting a gaming market that appreciates the latency, motion performance, and contrast benefits OLED brings to gaming.
I actually left Windows to fix driver stability, which worked and did the trick. I couldn’t play Indiana Jones without crashing.
I should have maybe been more clear (grandparent to your comment) that I didn’t mean to be out defending Windows or anything like that. I migrated away from Windows this year.
I just find that the arguments for sticking to Windows 10 are super weak and overstated. Windows 11 is a decent OS and a clear improvement over 10, in my opinion. It’s just that for me, Linux is now better.
Makes sense, yeah. Nice talking to you.
I don’t personally own a monitor capable of HDR but if I had one I would prioritize it a little more, and in my case, I migrated to Linux to resolve specific graphics driver problems. Getting my games to work at all was more important than HDR.
I also recognize that laptops are generally more popular than desktops and OLED is far more common in that form factor. So when I talked about what gamers in general should prioritize regarding running windows 10 versus 11, I figure that many of them have laptops that therefore have OLED monitors capable of HDR.
Also, I was only using HDR as a single example of the gaming enhancements that Windows 11 has, we don’t have to dwell on that one in particular. We could talk about support for enhanced polling rate mice, or better windowed fullscreen, or better VRR.
Letting people get away with that has led to the unpleasant state of the internet we have now and mild correction simply doesn't work.
Hence I've pointed at the exact holes/fault lines. Nothing personal. I wish you a lot of fun gaming on linux.
It seems like you’ve been mostly focused on proving me wrong and that’s why the conversation didn’t go the way you wanted it to go. I actually even agreed with you about some stuff, like the fact that most gamers don’t have cutting edge hardware.
I suggest that there are ways in which you contributed to the negative aspects of this interaction. Conversations are a two way street!