PC Gaming Inches Past Consoles & Phones in Global Revenue

By Published April 30, 2016 at 10:20 am

Industry analyst Newzoo reports that PC gaming is now projected to generate $31.9 billion in game software sales annually, or 32% of annual global games market revenue with +2.1% YoY growth. Its closest and longest competitor, console gaming, is projected to generate $29.0 billion in 2016 (29%) with a +4.5% YoY growth. Despite this growth pattern, both device categories are expected to stagnate in marketshare through 2019, their segments beset upon by mobile devices.

The report offers broken-down measurements of “casual web games” and “PC/MMO” (our more traditional version of PC gaming), and also splits portables into “personal screen” (phones) and “floating screen” (tablets + handhelds). Standalone, phone gaming revenue is reaching a staggering $27.1 billion – against the medium's age, an impressive number – with a 23.7% YoY growth. Handheld games comprise $1.8 billion (-24.1% YoY decline) of the Floating Screen category, with tablets accounting for the remaining $9.8 billion (+15.1% YoY growth). Casual Web Games make up $5.2 billion in PC revenue, but are declining by 7.5% YoY; PC/MMO games consist of $26.7 billion of the total $31.9 billion PC revenue.

global-game-revenue-2

The total games industry market is projected to hit $99.6 billion in 2016, consistent with previous analyst projections. VR is accounted for in each of the above core categories.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the global games market is largely fueled by the Asia-Pacific region (58%), with North America following at 25%. The US and Canada jointly drive $25.4Bn in revenue to the industry, Europe, the Middle-East, and Africa (a single group) drive $23.5Bn, China alone pushes $24.4Bn, and Asia-Pacific as a whole drives $46.6Bn (including China).

Read about Newzoo's reporting methods here. The full, in-depth report is here.

- Steve "Lelldorianx" Burke.

Last modified on April 30, 2016 at 10:20 am
Steve Burke

Steve started GamersNexus back when it was just a cool name, and now it's grown into an expansive website with an overwhelming amount of features. He recalls his first difficult decision with GN's direction: "I didn't know whether or not I wanted 'Gamers' to have a possessive apostrophe -- I mean, grammatically it should, but I didn't like it in the name. It was ugly. I also had people who were typing apostrophes into the address bar - sigh. It made sense to just leave it as 'Gamers.'"

First world problems, Steve. First world problems.

We moderate comments on a ~24~48 hour cycle. There will be some delay after submitting a comment.

  VigLink badge