We’ve established repeatedly that PC gaming isn’t remotely close to being dead or dying, so perhaps it’s time to redirect that argument to consoles? DFC Intelligence owner David Cole tells PCR that revenue from PC gaming has surpassed that of consoles on a global scale. But beyond the claim, there is some fascinating peripheral data showing that PC gaming’s dominance will only continue.  Should this be the last generation of proprietary Nintendo, Microsoft, and Sony platforms? 

David Cole makes an interesting claim about the general ownership of devices, stating that “the big difference is that consoles are now the luxury item and PCs are the necessity. Just a few years ago the reverse was true.” I believe this is the case because our perception of what constitutes a PC has fundamentally changed. Consider that Blizzard’s wildly popular digital card game Hearthstone is playable on a Microsoft MSFT +0.74% Surface, a $4000 custom gaming PC, and an iPad. All of which double as productivity devices, communication devices, and entertainment consumption devices.

The PC isn’t dying, it’s merely redefining its form factor.

Here’s another amazing statistic: DFC reports that their Top 20 list of PC games for 2013, in terms of usage, doesn’t include a single game actually released in 2013. DFC says that MOBA (multiplayer online battle arena) titles like League of Legends and DotA 2 “dominate everything else by an order of magnitude in terms of more usage than other products,” followed by MMOs, strategy games, and shooters.

After reading the interview, I went back to my own conversation with Raptr CEO Dennis Fong, who reminded me there are a staggering 900 million PC gamers worldwide. Contrast that data with global consoles sales of, say, Nintendo's Nintendo's Wii, Microsoft’s Xbox 360, and Sony's Sony's PlayStation 3: About 262 million units. Combined. Granted, that’s according to VGChartz which isn’t a perfectly reliable snapshot, but even with a considerable error rate that tells a compelling story. The most popular game console to date is the PlayStation, with estimated global sales of 157 million.

Don’t think for a second that first party game developers like Naughty Dog (Uncharted, Last of Us) and 343 Industries (Halo) wouldn’t love to open their sales doors to a dramatically larger audience. The Last Of Us, a high-profile 15-month old PlayStation 3 exclusive, recently surpassed 6 million copies sold. Diablo III hit 6.3 million sales in its first week of release on PC.

Then there’s the exorbitant cost of Research & Development for new consoles, the creation and maintenance of specialized developer kits, time-consuming processes to get patches and game updates approved for distribution, and a myriad other considerations making consoles a costly endeavor. And in the grand scheme of things, a product the public views as wildly successful — like Microsoft’s Xbox 360 — represents a pretty insignificant profit for Microsoft.

In a past speculative piece about Stephen Elop taking over as Microsoft CEO (back when that was a rumor), I dug up some sobering data about Microsoft’s Entertainment and Devices division, which includes Xbox. It saw a healthy 55% year-over-year growth from 2012 to 2013. That growth translated to an annual operating income of $848 million. Get this: Microsoft pulled in $6.334 billion in the enterprise space alone — and just in its first quarter of fiscal year 2014. They clear $2 billion per year in pure profit from Android patent royalties.

Is the Xbox a liability? Not yet, although shareholders may have a different view. Just imagine if Microsoft dumped all of their efforts for original programming, online multiplayer, and exclusive games into the PC platform instead of the Xbox 360 and Xbox One…

I own an Xbox One and a PlayStation 4, and they’re both wonderful pieces of hardware in their own right, but we’re becoming a society which favors the all-in-device. A society craving less clutter, less noise, less obstacles to get in the way of our entertainment. And PCs are adapting with us by becoming smaller and more affordable. In fact, I believe a driving factor in the PC gaming surge has been the release of these new consoles — they’re similar in architecture to the PC, they’re buggy like the PC, and they do a variety of things just like the PC. So why not just get a PC?

The list in favor of developing games on PC instead of consoles is lengthy, and I won’t get too verbose about it here. But consider the lower cost of lifetime ownership (no fees for PSN, Xbox Live), or the competitive digital distribution landscape which inspires frequent sales on Steam, Green Man Gaming, and Origin. Consider the increasing portability of the PC. Consider the explosion of Virtual Reality games on the horizon when Oculus Rift releases. Or the freedom of control choice (gamepad, keyboard and mouse, Kinect, VR, motion, etc). Or the more open and flexible nature of PC operating systems.

Console sales are healthy — for consoles. But one has to wonder how long the platform holders and developers can keep shielding their eyes from the allure of a constantly-exploding PC market.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/jasonevangelho/2014/04/28/as-global-pc-game-revenue-surpasses-consoles-how-long-should-console-makers-keep-fighting/

I love my PC, but I also love my consolse, and I believe that as long as core gamers exist, so will consoles.

Interesting article, and they mentioned VgChartz! 

I think there will always be demand for consoles, but in the case of  Microsoft, it would be better if they got rid of Xbox IMO.

You know, I love articles like this and the reason being is that it shows that PC is indeed a viable platform for many regardless of its faults such as "piracy" and "initial investment" and "it breaks to often (which I think is a total bs argument)"

It just goes to show that even though PC gaming may not be talked about as often as console gaming, PCs gaming is still healthy as ever and anyone thinks otherwise should do a little bit more research before making up an excuse as to why PC gaming is "dooomed"

I mean, I love console gaming but if I had the choice of playing a game on PC vs the same game on Console, not for even a second would I choose console but thats why console exclusives exist

Good article but the key will be achieving the true 'tray and play' technology. Microsoft could achieve that with a DX release if they didn't have a conflict of interest with their console, but that could change rather soon.

Yeah, same here. Over the last generation PC has become the most viable platform for the best versions of multiplatform games.

Isn't a lot of PC gaming revenue coming from LoL? lol

Doubt it, I am pretty sure Steam makes way more than they do as League of Legends is a free to play game and I honestly doubt that the majority of people spend a lot of money on it. Some yeah, but most would probably spend $20-$30 a year even if that.

Nintendo has nothing to fear from PC gamers. The two are widely different. However the two mega cooperations are way more similar to PC so they will get more hurt by them if PC gets more popular.

"900 million PC gamers worldwide"

See, this is my problem with these articles. They throw around hugely inflated numbers that have little context in a direct comparison to consoles, then use said pointless comparison to claim the possible irrelevance of consoles.

It makes me happy to see the PC market grow (especially since it directly benefits me as a PC gamer), but pretending the core PC market is maybe going to replace console gaming (despite accounting for a pretty small portion of major publisher software sales), is just silly.

That's not to say the core PC market isn't huge, it is. It's just not 900m huge :p