New numbers out today from market research outfit Jon Peddie (JPR) predict worldwide growth for PC gaming hardware shipments and regional market share to be “amazing”.
According to JPR total market value for PC gaming hardware in 2008 was just over $20 billion, a figure expected to shoot up to $34 billion by 2012, with the hardware pulling in an extra $6 billion in software and services sales.
The study reckons the Enthusiast segment of the gaming hardware market has a worldwide Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of nine per cent, the Performance segment is predicted to have a CAGR of 19 per cent and the Mainstream market, where the purchase motivation for gaming is about 6 percent, has a CAGR of 21 per cent.
The Peddie report apparently also warns hardware suppliers that not all countries have the same voracious appetite for PC gaming and they should take care when thinking about what hardware to send where. Asia/Pacific, however, is singled out as being the region with the largest market for gaming hardware.
A few trends noted by the boffins down at JPR include the shift to notebook gaming and a growing market for do-it-yourselfers, punters who like fiddling around with their hardware and upgrading their PCs with high-performance gaming graphics boards. PC gaming also appears to be making headway against the console gaming market, with JPR claiming the high price of an HDTV for the console is proving too much of an investment in these uncertain economic times.
Also, says Ted Pollak, co-author of the report “"Enthusiast PC gamers often latch onto one or two games that offer multiplayer options and stick to these titles for years”.
He adds that hardware is where gamers really spend the big bucks, and notes “retail software figures are not an accurate barometer for the health of the PC gaming industry."