14 DAY TRIAL // Although we’ve known this for a while, it’s now pretty obvious that PC gaming hardware has won the battle against consoles, as a new research reveals that this particular market reached the $30 billion sales threshold for the first time last year.
Sales of PC gaming hardware has increased in all three segments (entry-level, mid-range, and high-end), according to Jon Peddle Research, setting a new record in 2016 thanks to strong sales in the biggest markets.
Specifically, 43 percent of the sales last year were recorded in the high-end market, while mid-range accounted for 35 percent of them. Only 22 percent of buyers went for entry-level gaming hardware in 2016.
PC gaming hardware is expected to continue the growth through 2019, and the research estimates a 6 percent increase in the coming years.
As far as the reasons why more people chose the PC for gaming instead of consoles, Ted Pollak, Senior Game Industry Analyst for JPR, mentions the most important in a statement:
“The desktop ergonomic is popular because the display distance offers increased detail when using HD and UHD monitors. Additionally there is superior control with mouse and keyboard control interfaces. This has been validated with eSports overwhelmingly being played on PCs,” he said.
“Additionally, product designers have given PC gamers thousands of options for complete customization from a functionally and aesthetic perspective. Examples of this include dedicated driving and flight systems, multi-display setups, super-powerful graphics boards, and a wide selection of gaming notebooks ranging from desktop substitutes to innovative ‘thin and light’ offerings. Liquid cooling, lighting, solid state drives, genre specific gaming mice, mechanical keyboards, notebook graphics amplifiers, and Xbox accessory compatibility offer gamers more choices than they have ever had.”
These are undoubtedly advantages that consoles would never be able to offer, and this is why they’re losing ground in all major markets, the report shows.
In Asia Pacific Region, PC gaming hardware sales reached $11.3 billion last year and are estimated to grow 7 percent through 2019, while North America and Western Europe are also expected to increase, but at a slower rate of 5.78% and 9.61%, respectively.
The console makers
While Sony cannot be pleased with such news, the other big player in the gaming business, Microsoft, has reasons to be both happy and sad with the numbers. While Xbox is losing the battle with the PC, the Redmond-based software giant seems to be scoring big with the gaming improvements that it’s making in Windows 10, as the OS is already showing excellent adoption figures in the gaming community.
Nearly 1 in 2 Windows PCs on Steam are powered by Windows 10, which makes it the number one operating system on Valve’s gaming platform.
Furthermore, Microsoft keeps working on improving gaming in Windows 10, and the upcoming Creators Update is expected to come with a new feature called “gaming mode” and supposed to optimize processes and resources to boost performance while playing games.