News - PC gaming hardware market worth $21.5 billion

[HEXUS]

That's twice the value of the console hardware market.

Read more.

[Jack1991]

cover image is tastyyyyyyyyyyyyyy

[cowboysaif]

Still we are presented with bad pc ports, late announcements, lower priority and piracy issue ( although it is console-wide too ).

[RT-XD]

Still we are presented with bad pc ports, late announcements, lower priority and piracy issue ( although it is console-wide too ).

Hopefully some of that will be less of an issue to consoles having similar architecture to the PC. Now they can port games to consoles and not the other way round!

[LeetyMcLeet]

PC 4TW!
Never owned a console.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Emm,consoles have been sold at cost or for a loss for years now,so I am not sure it is a surprise,especially with the relatively long upgrade cycles too.

Consoles are more about the software side when it comes to money making.

[63jax]

and they said PCs are dying, dumb asses!

[crossy]

I don't think much of what JPR is saying is going to come as much of a surprise to anyone who's a regular @Hexus.. The bit about migration of "casual gaming" to tablets though I would have thought very worrying to Nintendo, since that's going to slam their living-room and handheld console business. I certainly wouldn't bother with a 3DS these days, and wasn't impressed with WiiU from day 1.

Given I can use an XBox controller on my PC, the only attraction the current gen consoles would have would be for the console exclusives, and there's no way I'm forking out £350+ just to be able to play the latest Forza or GranTourismo.

One argument though:

"Nvidia, Intel and AMD have enthusiast CPU and GPUs that are so powerful that, when combined with SSDs and fast memory, they absolutely trounce the computing power and gaming capabilities of the newest console generation," Jon Peddie, president of JPR explained.

While AMD (/ATi) GPU's are pretty reasonable compared with NVidia's, I thought that the prevailing wisdom was that AMD's CPU's were not as good for gaming as their Intel-based brethren at the high-end (top i5 and all i7). I'm sure there's been comments in the last month here about a replacement for the FX's being long overdue.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

and they said PCs are dying, dumb asses!

Discrete graphics card sales are down year on year.

IGPs are eating away at discrete sales each year and more and more people own laptops and hybrid tablets instead of desktops.

All this is saying is the remaining PC owners,are probably spending more on their PCs now.

The increase in graphics card prices and the slowing down of generational improvements alone,probably means more and more people are spending more on graphics cards over a fixed period now.

One argument though:

While AMD (/ATi) GPU's are pretty reasonable compared with NVidia's, I thought that the prevailing wisdom was that AMD's CPU's were not as good for gaming as their Intel-based brethren at the high-end (top i5 and all i7). I'm sure there's been comments in the last month here about a replacement for the FX's being long overdue.

Actually in real life when I have gone to LANs,or even seen what many gamers I have met use,at least in the UK,I find that Core i5s and the like are nowhere as common as on enthusiast forums!

Remember,most gamers are not hardware enthusiasts,or likely to post on hardware forums,or even think spending £160 to £200 on a CPU is OK!! I think among a dozen or so people I know who spend decent amounts on gaming computers,only perhaps a third own Core i5s or Core i7s(including me) and most of the people in the dozen are hardware enthusiasts/work with computers too.

The other aspect is plenty of gamers won't mind dropping some settings or even the resolution a tad if a game does start to slow down a bit anyway,unlike many enthusiasts who would get heart palpitations at the very thought!!

Edit!!

Even with graphics cards,I have rarely met anyone who has anything much above a £200 to £250 card TBH,including those with rigs having Core i7s.

[watercooled]

Emm,consoles have been sold at cost or for a loss for years now,so I am not sure it is a surprise,especially with the relatively long upgrade cycles too.

Consoles are more about the software side when it comes to money making.

Agreed, this seems like a very specific analysis which doesn't look at the whole story and over-extrapolates the numbers.

In other news, more keyboards are bought for use with PCs than consoles...

[Jingee]

Ain't 2K just basically 1080p?

[abychristy]

It'll worth even more if every game made is released on PC without any downgrade in graphics.

[kingpotnoodle]

A "gaming" PC (as opposed to a basic build with slight gaming ability) could cost anywhere from 2x to 10x the price of a console depending on how extreme it is... so not really surprising the hardware market is larger, sadly it doesn't mean PC is more popular or that the market for games themselves is similarly lucrative.

[DanceswithUnix]

Even with graphics cards,I have rarely met anyone who has anything much above a £200 to £250 card TBH,including those with rigs having Core i7s.

Though as a counter to that I have met plenty of people with more than one gaming capable PC in the house so the total spend can be quite high even sticking to the ~£130 sweet spot that I try to stay at.

I wonder if this study filtered out buying cards for coin mining.

[watercooled]

A "gaming" PC (as opposed to a basic build with slight gaming ability) could cost anywhere from 2x to 10x the price of a console depending on how extreme it is... so not really surprising the hardware market is larger, sadly it doesn't mean PC is more popular or that the market for games themselves is similarly lucrative.

Quite. In terms of sales of major titles (the sort of numbers big devs/publishers are interested in), any single console outsold PC for BF4: http://www.vgchartz.com/gamedb/?name=battlefield+4
And that's true of what seems like most big multi-platform games. The BF series is relatively popular on PC, the difference is even more dramatic when you look at the likes of CoD: http://www.vgchartz.com/gamedb/?name=modern+warfare+3

[DanceswithUnix]

Quite. In terms of sales of major titles (the sort of numbers big devs/publishers are interested in), any single console outsold PC for BF4: http://www.vgchartz.com/gamedb/?name=battlefield+4
And that's true of what seems like most big multi-platform games. The BF series is relatively popular on PC, the difference is even more dramatic when you look at the likes of CoD: http://www.vgchartz.com/gamedb/?name=modern+warfare+3

I notice that even Minecraft, starting on and still most featured on the PC, is now lagging in sales on the PC version. http://www.gamespot.com/articles/min.../1100-6420724/