PC market worth double the console market, says study

PC master race wins the day

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The PC gaming is worth double that of its competitors thanks in part to better resistance against the encroaching mobile market, according to a new study.

The report from Jon Peddie Research (via IGN) states that PC gaming on the whole is worth $21.5 billion, more than twice the value of the console industry. It projects that its value will top $23 billion by 2017. It also notes that the PC gaming space is very fragmented, comparing high-end users to sports car owners. The low-end users are more content with anything that can play their games, according to the report, so that's the market segment most at risk for being replaced by cheaper solutions.

“We continue to see a shift in casual console customers moving to mobile. While this is also occurring in the lower end PC gaming world, more money is being directed to mid and high range PC builds and upgrades by gamers. Committed PC gamers are generally not interested in pure content consumption platforms," said senior gaming analyst Ted Pollak. "They are power users and pay thousands for the ability to play games at very high settings and then do business, video/photo editing, content creation and other tasks with maximum horsepower at their disposal in a desktop ergonomic environment.” 

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  • reply
    July 14, 2014 3:30 PM

    Steve Watts posted a new article, PC market worth double the console market, says study.

    PC master race wins the day

    • reply
      July 14, 2014 3:35 PM

      That picture never fails to crack me up. Clueless girl playing racing game using a flight stick all while under the influence of some sort of drug/alcohol mix.

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      July 14, 2014 3:35 PM

      Not sure what they are saying in this report. Are they saying that there is more money in selling the hardware of gaming PCs than consoles?

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        July 14, 2014 4:26 PM

        I don't know how much opportunity there is in the PC game rig hardware market that isn't already cornered by the usual suspects. Even then, we saw OCZ go bankrupt in December 2013, and there's been movement in and out of that space for a while.

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          July 14, 2014 9:31 PM

          [deleted]

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            July 15, 2014 9:19 AM

            Agreed, they didn't go bankrupt because of lack of demand in the SSD market, they went bankrupt because their products had a higher than average failure rate; and that's especially damning in the PC space because people that build their own PC's also take extra time to research parts for quality and track-record. I rarely upgrade my PC hardware, but when I do, I spend hours researching parts to ensure I don't regret my purchase.

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        July 15, 2014 6:51 AM

        I could be mistaken, but it seems the dialogue is squarely situated on the software of PC games. After all, while you must buy a PC in order to play PC games, a PC purchase is not actually a PC game purchase.

        And they are spot-on about the low-end PC gamer as well. The games that cheap/old PCs will be running, are the type that can be done on mobile easily, and possibly even have a better experience for it, Angry Birds, Plants vs. Zombies etc.

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      July 14, 2014 3:36 PM

      Aw, yea. My "platform" of choice still has some legs left!

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      July 14, 2014 3:45 PM

      curious how much of the total value of PCs is tied up in a very small number of games (LoL, DOTA2, Minecraft, WoW, and probably 4-5 Asian properties). I suspect the graph of earnings looks very skewed.

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        July 14, 2014 4:33 PM

        Not only that, but if they are counting all the PC sales, upgrades, etc as the gaming market that seems like it would be a specious number.

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        July 14, 2014 9:25 PM

        I'd be surprised if that wasn't the case. That being said, the long tail on the PC is super long compared to consoles. The PC such an accessible platform there are tons of niches which could not exist on consoles as they are now. To me that makes the PC platform much more interesting than the big money titles.

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        July 14, 2014 9:37 PM

        [deleted]

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        July 14, 2014 10:22 PM

        uhh is that not the exact same way the consoles are too???

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          July 14, 2014 10:26 PM

          what console games have as many active players as WoW, LoL or DOTA2 with a subscription or microtransactions?

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            July 15, 2014 8:12 AM

            none, which is why PC gaming is the master race. However, the smaller console market is dominated by shit like CoD or Madden

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      July 14, 2014 4:35 PM

      As best I can tell from the linked article, they're talking about hardware sales only, so the headline "PC market worth double the console market, says study" is really misleading. Saying that PC gamers spend more on hardware than console gamers is kind of the most obvious statement in the world.

      There's also very little information given, unless you apparently pay $7,500-$15,000 for the full report, but I guess there's enough for a juicy headline.

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        July 15, 2014 2:41 AM

        ^^ yes, this seems like a very dumb thing, it's just hardware sales

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          July 15, 2014 7:01 AM

          If it's just hardware sales how can you differentiate sales for predominately gaming vs that for productivity with gaming being a secondary or tertiary consideration?

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            July 15, 2014 8:05 AM

            Pay $7,000 and find out!

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            July 15, 2014 8:22 AM

            well, that would depend very much on how they were breaking down the sales.

            I doubt there are many Razer mice being purchased for business use (for example.)

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            July 15, 2014 9:25 AM

            Agreed, gaming rigs can be expensive, but if you're shooting for mid to high tier and not ultra, you can build a pretty power machine for under a grand. Productivity PC's instantly jump up in cost thanks to specialized hardware.

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          July 15, 2014 8:08 AM

          I don't know how you parse that at all, particularly when they discuss what PC GAMES people play, and how those low-end PC gamers cross over to mobile GAMES.

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            July 15, 2014 1:16 PM

            The report is called "Worldwide PC Gaming Hardware Market Report Series"

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        July 15, 2014 7:31 AM

        On the flip side, we're in a period where people are replacing 2 of the 3 consoles out there with a new model. AND the Nintendo found something to move units finally!!
        There's nothing on the PC side REQUIRING you to upgrade anything. I can play all the current or upcoming games on my current system, with reductions in graphics details.

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      July 14, 2014 5:02 PM

      Excellent. You are doing well, baby.

      http://grumbeld.com/pix/pclove.jpg

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      July 14, 2014 8:33 PM

      We are Borg, I mean PC users.
      We add all innovation to our gaming machines as they are created rather than once every eight years.

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      July 14, 2014 9:00 PM

      If only 90% of it wasn't LoL and DOTA.

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      July 14, 2014 9:13 PM

      Master. Motherfucking. Race.

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      July 14, 2014 9:19 PM

      bet dollars to doughnuts they're counting tablet games too

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        July 14, 2014 9:52 PM

        mobile devices can count as 'PC" right?

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          July 14, 2014 10:01 PM

          no they don't, read the article; the whole study is explicitly in contrast to mobile devices.

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          July 15, 2014 7:08 AM

          Tablet games would count as mobile games.

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      July 14, 2014 10:00 PM

      Not surprising. Have you seen GPU prices lately?

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        July 14, 2014 10:06 PM

        Depends on what you mean. Yeah, sure, a GTX780 is going to set you back a bit, but the 750 is fairly cheap and surprisingly capable - it's really not a bad price point at all for what you get.

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          July 14, 2014 10:42 PM

          I <3 my GTX 780. I am hoping that it has some sustainability.

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            July 14, 2014 10:56 PM

            It probably will. I have a 680 and I'm feeling no need to update yet.

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            July 15, 2014 7:23 AM

            @ 1080p you're going to be fine for a good long while. hell, at 1440 you're probably going to be set for at bare minimum a year. (i could see a star citizen level game hurting that card maxed out at 1440 trying to maintain 60ps with low min rates, but that is the outlier).

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        July 14, 2014 11:00 PM

        Haha my 780ti was almost the cost of two new-gen consoles!

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        July 15, 2014 12:47 AM

        Free with any intel processor. And good enough to play pretty much any game. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CtmHt5N2JWA#t=455

        That's not even the fastest onchip gpu.

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        July 15, 2014 8:26 AM

        GPU nVidia's prices

    • reply
      July 14, 2014 10:41 PM

      PC master race wins the day ......... .... .... ....
      ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

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      July 14, 2014 11:01 PM

      Market which includes massive numbers of shitty free-to-play pc games (and some good ones), as well as almost the entire mmorpg market. I wonder how those figures look if you remove those factors and compare the more standard style libraries.

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        July 15, 2014 12:15 AM

        Why shouldn't it include those numbers and what does a "standard style library" consist of?

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          July 15, 2014 12:31 AM

          reporting on the health of something propped up by a few significant outliers paints a disingenuous view of health

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      July 15, 2014 12:32 AM

      PC gaming still always dies completely within a year or two, like it has for nearly two decades now. And after, we'll all be playing only on consoles. No amount of facts, statistics or logical arguments can change this.

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      July 15, 2014 12:56 AM

      Please keep the PC master race meme out of news stories.

      It will offend Jewish visitors.

    • reply
      July 15, 2014 5:56 AM

      That headline picture is... haha... sure something

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      July 15, 2014 7:24 AM

      [deleted]

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      July 15, 2014 8:29 AM

      New consoles came out, so everyone is upgrading their hardware to handle the new games.

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        July 15, 2014 8:36 AM

        Hardly any new games are really pushing the limits, even those that are PC/current gen exclusives and of those a few year old GPU will generally do just fine if you aren't on extreme settings. I seriously doubt that new consoles and their related software are pushing PC hardware sales much....yet

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          July 15, 2014 9:29 AM

          Yup, I'm still rocking my 660ti and it's more than capable of running pretty much anything at 1080p and 60fps, but I'm more than ok with 720p and 30fps for most games, so I won't be upgrading for a while.

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