jon-peddie-research posts

PC gaming-related hardware sales are supposed to increase 27 percent in 2011 to $22 billion worldwide. That's the result of a new study announced today by Jon Peddie Research. Part of the growth will be in China as that country's internet cafe upgrade their PC hardware in order for them to run newer and more hardware intensive games. Russia is another country that the study claims will be spending more on gaming-related hardware products.

The study also claims that PC gamers in general have an "increasing appetite" for products like "high quality speaker systems, headsets, mice, cases, cooling, and other accessories and customizations." It also claims that interest in 3D gaming continues to grow as does buying monitors with "higher resolution and better color capabilities."

The PC game industry may be switching from a retail business to a digital download revenue model but gamers still need to buy hardware to play their games. A new press release from Jon Peddie Research claims that the hardcore Enthusiast class of gamer represented 46 percent of the revenues generated by PC game-related hardware purchases in 2009.

The press release says the study shows that the Enthusiast class will represent a smaller percentage in future years as more dollars are spent by the less hardcore Performance and Mainstream classes. However the overall PC gaming hardware market is still expected to increase and the study claims the Enthusiast class will see its revenues increase from $9.5 billion to almost $12.5 billion by 2013.

Last May, a study by the Jon Peddie Research group predicted that the PC gaming hardware market would suffer a 7 percent drop in 2009 due in part to the effects of the current worldwide economic recession. Now the same group is announcing that new research shows the market will actually grow this year to $21.26 billion, up 5.6 percent from 2008.

The reversal is due to what the study shows is a "higher than anticipated consumer demand for Enthusiast, Performance, and Mainstream hardware." In addition, the study claims that 2010 will see a massive surge in this category to $27.617 billion, up 30 percent from this year's predicted numbers.

The economy is on everyone's mind now but a new study released today by Jon Peddie Research predicts that the PC gaming hardware market will only suffer a mild loss in 2009 and will actually have revenues that will outpace the gaming console hardware market this year.

In a press release today, the organization predicted that the PC gaming hardware industry will suffer a 7 percent drop in revenue in 2009 to $18.65 billion compared to 2008 which had $20.07 billion in revenue. However that number will still be higher than the combined total of the console hardware market in 2009, beating it by almost $2 billion. Jon Peddie Research states that "PC gaming systems seem to have suffered the least discounting which illustrates the value consumers place on such systems."

In addition to the PC, the study assumes that the consumer will want to buy other hardware for their gaming rig including "a percentage for the monitor (because some people will already have one), a percentage of accessories like driving wheels and special mice/joysticks, as well as aftermarket and DIY parts and systems." The market is expected to expand to over $30 billion in revenue by 2012.

The latest study that shows the growth, and not the death, of PC gaming is from Jon Peddie Research. Today the research and consulting firm revealed the summary of a new study (which you can buy for the low price of just $12,000) that they say shows that gaming PC hardware is bigger than many people believe and that a recession could even help the PC game industry.

According to their press release, "The total market value for PC gaming hardware in 2008 was just over $20 billion, and that will grow to over $34 billion by 2012 - and those systems pull in an additional $6 billion in software and services sales." They also feel that an economic slowdown could slow down the growth of console gaming. "Why? Because the cost of an HDTV for the console is a serious investment, particularly when a console is limited in what it can do, unlike a personal computer."

Even the sales of retail PC games don't give the entire picture, according to one of the writers of the study Ted Pollack. He believes, "Enthusiast PC gamers often latch onto one or two games that offer multiplayer options and stick to these titles for years. Hardware is where they spend the big bucks. The retail numbers don't capture the casual and digitally distributed games either. Retail software figures are not an accurate barometer for the health of the PC gaming industry." On the official Jon Peddie web site they are even more blunt, saying, "Fact is the PC Gaming Market is bigger, worth more money, growing faster, and has better technology than the console market. How come no one but us seems to know that?"