Yeah the water update must have done wonders.

I think the last time I played LBP online 4 months ago or so there were like 3.000 people online.

I also tried to get some numbers for Killzone 2 and Resistance 2, but they don't provide them unfortunately.

Well if you count total then I guess you could say that Steam is the fourth largest platform out there. If you count total users I guess it would go Steam, Xbox 360, PS3. If you counted online purchases the rankings are probably either Xbox 360 or Steam, but probably Steam on top due to more expensive content. If you were counting online players at once then probably Live -> Steam -> PSN -> Wii.

You messed that up. There aren't as many active Steam accounts are there are total 360s and PS3s, but there are definitely more games sold than on XBLA and PSN and WiiWare... most likey more than all combined.

Sorry I messed up the first sentence. Does this make more sense? In terms of total users Wii -> Xbox 360 -> PS3 -> Steam, people online at once Steam -> Xbox 360 -> PS3 -> Wii, people playing online Xbox 360, Steam, PS3, Wii, Total online revenue is Steam -> Xbox Live -> Wii -> PSN *im guessing lol*

I guess it depends on which metric you use. I mean Steam has a pretty poor penetration as an IM client, but thats not the main focus for example.

Anyone have some Wii numbers? Maybe Mario Kart?

I looked, no way to check amount of people online in Mario Kart or Smash. Pretty sure you can in Modern Warfare and World at War but I don't own either of those on Wii.

I've heard globally the usual peak is 2:30am to 3pm as that's when most kids get off from work/school in the US (PST) and most Europeans are off from work/school playing.

I meant comparing Steam's "active costumers"(people that buy Steam games) with current PS3 and Xbox 360 owners.  The question is, does Steam have a comparable userbase to the HD consoles (30 million-ish)?

In February 2008, Steam had 15 millions active users.
In February 2009, Steam had 20 millions active users.

That's a 5 million increase in just a year. How much will Steam have next month?!

The reason I think it's possible they increased their userbase by over 10 millions last year is because not only is Digital Distribution more accepted than before, but also because Steam increased their sales appeal, making amazing and insane deals. The biggest reason is that in 2009, many of the biggest PC games released their retail copies with Steam-integration, which means millions of people must've come to Steam from retail discs:

Empire: Total War
Dawn of War 2
Modern Warfare 2
Left 4 Dead 2
Football Manager 2010

The 5 games above are all multi-milions sellers on PC. Which shows the true potential.

The Last Remnant
Stormrise
Silent Hill Homecoming
Football Manager 2010
F.E.A.R. 2: Project Origin
Saint's Row 2
etc...

These ones could very well have helped bring a few more millions to Steam.

50% increase in 1 year sound pretty far fetched, im sorry but whilst I like the idea I will have to wait for confirmation.

what is considered "online" or "active?" I would be considered active on steam, it starts up when my computer starts up. It probably counts me as online at that instant, and when i'm playing single player games as well. With live and psn you have to go to the online portion of a game and sign on.