PC Gaming Crushes Console Gaming in New Survey

cageymaru

cageymaru

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The much maligned PC gaming sector has received a boost in a new survey conducted by EEDAR. According to the 2018 Gamer Segmentation Report conducted on 5,000 US gamers, mobile gaming is the number one way to play games as 90% of those surveyed chose that option. But then it gets interesting as 52% of US gamers also chose PC gaming as a source of entertainment. Only 43% of respondents chose console gaming as an option and a mere 9% said that they used handhelds. The Nintendo Switch was listed as a console in the survey even though it can be a handheld device. Thanks ontariotl for the impressive video from the watercooling section of [H]ardforum.

"Over the past several years, mobile gamers have been a key segment for the games industry to target with marketing spend because of the sheer size and diversity of the audience, as well as the amount of time invested in gaming on this platform," EEDAR head of consumer research Dr. Heather Nofziger said. "While there continues to be opportunity for growth in mobile, the real potential for growth lies with getting the other groups increasingly involved in gaming across platforms that they may not have considered using for gaming in the past."

 
Well whenever there is a multi-platform release the PC version comes out better (higher framerates, better resolutions, better shadows, draw distances, etc). And more of the games are now multi-platform as there seem to be less exclusives. I think that the consoles being underpowered has played a role. Finally, Steam sales mean you can get the games way cheaper than on console. So yeah PC gaming FTW even more than in the past.
 
biggles said:
Well whenever there is a multi-platform release the PC version comes out better (higher framerates, better resolutions, better shadows, draw distances, etc). And more of the games are now multi-platform as there seem to be less exclusives. I think that the consoles being underpowered has played a role. Finally, Steam sales mean you can get the games way cheaper than on console. So yeah PC gaming FTW even more than in the past.
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Yeah, a lot of people don't realize / believe how much cheaper PC gaming is in the long term if you're budget oriented. If you're patient and ONLY buy during major sales and don't have to have the brand new thing, the game costs come out significantly cheaper in the long term, even if the hardware cost is more than consoles upfront.
 
With the difference now in versions of console in terms of power etc, the difference between PC and Console gaming is shrinking...
 
focbde said:
With the difference now in versions of console in terms of power etc, the difference between PC and Console gaming is shrinking...
Click to expand...

And yet I can play the same game on PC at double the framerate and higher resolution than on my PS4 Pro.

I agree with you that the divide is shrinking, but power-wise we're nowhere near parity. And it makes sense, the cost difference is massive as well.
 
focbde said:
With the difference now in versions of console in terms of power etc, the difference between PC and Console gaming is shrinking...
Click to expand...

I think it shrunk for like five minutes. There's not even an updated console that comes anywhere close to top end current or upcoming RTX GPUs, and there is no console with anything like higher end CPUs available right now.

I guess it's "close enough" for your average mainstream "gamer" type, but not for people with discerning hardware tastes. :D
 
tetris42 said:
Yeah, a lot of people don't realize / believe how much cheaper PC gaming is in the long term if you're budget oriented. If you're patient and ONLY buy during major sales and don't have to have the brand new thing, the game costs come out significantly cheaper in the long term, even if the hardware cost is more than consoles upfront.
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Not really. Console games drop in price rather quickly nowadays also. After a month you can typically get a AAA game like God of war for $40. You can get horizon Dawn zero compelete for as low as $15 after a year. These are the major titles. Lesser titles hit the bargin bin faster and cheaper.
 
I think Part of the reason is the 10 series laptop GPUs, I mean lets be honest here, quite a few years ago if you said "Gaming Laptop" people would pretty much laugh or scoff at the idea. Any laptop that could game was about an inch and a half thick and you could kill a person with it for how heavy they were, which by any means basically meant they were desktop replacements rather than actual laptops. These days you can buy a thin and light with a 1050/1050ti/1060 for around the $800-$1k price range and still competently game at 1080p resolutions on the go at 2.5 to 4 hours of battery life, which could be better but has come along a long way since previous years.

Mobile gaming is more prevalent because of the wide adoption of smartphones, everyone has a mobile phone these days, Retro arcade setups are also more prevalent than they have ever been running off cheap old hardware even older laptops in some cases, Consoles still thrive based on BluRay capabilities and for some households provides utility for multiple entertainment needs.

PC is the most versatile platform, allowing productivity, to a wide selection of gaming, and multimedia support, also despite its steep costs VR still has a community and for a premium experience(while PSVR is nice it has its shortcomings) its niche has brought even more people back into the fold. Cheap games could also be a valid reason for more migrating to the platform as well, Games in particular like WoW/Overwatch/LoL/PUBG/Fortnite are all very popular games that have helped bring people back as well, and future titles like Hunted are proving to be irresistible to some as the experience is there for them part of what makes titles better is the fact people can use gamepads/jotsticks(HOTAS)/Arcade controls and such to an easy effective degree allowing people to play games the way they choose rather than being locked into console very specific controls. Esports has contributed to a large degree as well, and now that money is changing hands and investors are moving in we can only see people adopting various platforms for their favorite games.
 
J3RK said:
I think it shrunk for like five minutes. There's not even an updated console that comes anywhere close to top end current or upcoming RTX GPUs, and there is no console with anything like higher end CPUs available right now.

I guess it's "close enough" for your average mainstream "gamer" type, but not for people with discerning hardware tastes. :D
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Consoles are for the Mainstream and the casual player as budget and low cost gaming, by the same token Yes you can buy a 4k console for 400$ but the problem is the HDTV that for a mainstream brand will cost you $700-$3k for the budgeting needs, Lets be honest 3k TV or a $1k monitor $1k GPU and the rest, you can basically have a top notch gaming rig that can stream and record allowing you the best possible experience and if you are popular enough money from twitch and youtube ad revenue.

Consoles can spike at certain times above PC, but the major issue is they are at the mercy of the TV market and the standards they employ which tends to be slower than the Computer markets, an example Dell had an 8k monitor for the past year for sale and they are finally offering 8k HDTVs for sale next year, as well Optimization can only go so far at a point you are stuck at the mercy of the hardware and its lack of capabilities this gen proved that more than any other in the past, budget hardware is still budget hardware and the overall capabilities are stuck at whatever the greatest power is they can get away with relative to what consumers will pay upfront for the unit.
 
Don't get too excited folks. I'd bet a big part of the 53% is from things like LoL, DOTA 2, PUBG, Fortnite, and so on. Its not going to be dominated by the people playing the big AAA releases. Until that changes consoles will continue to be the priority for the major publishers.
 
This isn't about price or spec comparisons. Just look at what's popular and you'll find what's selling. It may be the flavor of the year or next two decades. My brothers kids are under 10 and they watch youtube which led them to minecraft and fortnite which made them demand pcs. When i was that age everybody wanted a nintendo (NES).

All of the major competitive games and most popular games for young people like minectaft and roblox are native to pc.
 
1Nocturnal101 said:
Consoles are for the Mainstream and the casual player as budget and low cost gaming, by the same token Yes you can buy a 4k console for 400$ but the problem is the HDTV that for a mainstream brand will cost you $700-$3k for the budgeting needs, Lets be honest 3k TV or a $1k monitor $1k GPU and the rest, you can basically have a top notch gaming rig that can stream and record allowing you the best possible experience and if you are popular enough money from twitch and youtube ad revenue.

Consoles can spike at certain times above PC, but the major issue is they are at the mercy of the TV market and the standards they employ which tends to be slower than the Computer markets, an example Dell had an 8k monitor for the past year for sale and they are finally offering 8k HDTVs for sale next year, as well Optimization can only go so far at a point you are stuck at the mercy of the hardware and its lack of capabilities this gen proved that more than any other in the past, budget hardware is still budget hardware and the overall capabilities are stuck at whatever the greatest power is they can get away with relative to what consumers will pay upfront for the unit.
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I don't disagree. I wasn't really comparing costs though. Just what's available.
 
I got off the PC upgrade treadmill when the xBox 360 came out. It was too expensive to buy new video cards every year to play the latest AAA release. I've bought 2 consoles totaling $650-$700 in the last 10-11 years. I used to spend that on just video cards in less than half that amount of time. Now with the cost of video cards I can't imagine how much I would have spent in the last decade if I was still upgrading my computer to play the latest & greatest. I only play a couple of hours a week, definitely not worth the investment on the PC for me.

I still respect the people willing to spend the time and money to maintain a high end rig, and would love a keyboard and mouse at times, but the console world just works better for my life.
 
Why aren't handhelds bundled in with mobile or vice versa? If you're gonna split them up you might as well just say Nintendo since they're the only ones in the handheld market in a meaningful way at this point.

Edit: oh they didn't even include the switch as a portable, so what was that list like then? And why doesn't the article have a link to that report?
 
DFranch said:
I got off the PC upgrade treadmill when the xBox 360 came out. It was too expensive to buy new video cards every year to play the latest AAA release. I've bought 2 consoles totaling $650-$700 in the last 10-11 years. I used to spend that on just video cards in less than half that amount of time. Now with the cost of video cards I can't imagine how much I would have spent in the last decade if I was still upgrading my computer to play the latest & greatest. I only play a couple of hours a week, definitely not worth the investment on the PC for me.

I still respect the people willing to spend the time and money to maintain a high end rig, and would love a keyboard and mouse at times, but the console world just works better for my life.
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Well the really cool thing is that notebooks that have crappy on-board graphics can be upgraded to gaming rigs with external GPU cages. GPUs have gotten much cheaper in the used market and all games will run on stuff from 3 generations ago if you turn the settings down. Then you have stuff like the Steam Link that allows you to stream and play your PC games on your smartphone with onscreen or any controller that will connect to a PC. Heck Valve even paid for the development of tools to translate Windows games to Linux.

It is a different PC gaming world than the limited options that we had during the Xbox 360 era. ;)
 
CptCabbit said:
Why aren't handhelds bundled in with mobile or vice versa? If you're gonna split them up you might as well just say Nintendo since they're the only ones in the handheld market in a meaningful way at this point.

Edit: oh they didn't even include the switch as a portable, so what was that list like then? And why doesn't the article have a link to that report?
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Report is behind a paywall or at least information gathering. I saw how much information that I had to fill out to get to the next step to see the article and went with a website that paid the cost. :)
 
cageymaru said:
Report is behind a paywall or at least information gathering. I saw how much information that I had to fill out to get to the next step to see the article and went with a website that paid the cost. :)
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Bummer, thanks for the info.
 
I learned the hard way about consoles. They are a dead end investment, where a PC can be upgraded, pretty easily.

Bought the console, bought the games,...new console comes out,....none of the old games play on it, so you have to buy a new console and the games all over again as the new games will not play on the old console. Screw that.

Fooled me once,...shame on me.....

Why people keep putting money into them is the only mystery to me.
 
BSmith said:
I learned the hard way about consoles. They are a dead end investment, where a PC can be upgraded, pretty easily.

Bought the console, bought the games,...new console comes out,....none of the old games play on it, so you have to buy a new console and the games all over again as the new games will not play on the old console. Screw that.

Fooled me once,...shame on me.....

Why people keep putting money into them is the only mystery to me.
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A lot of xbox 360 games are playable on the xbox one. you must have had a playstation.
 
DFranch said:
A lot of xbox 360 games are playable on the xbox one. you must have had a playstation.
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You missed the point. There is no guarantee the next generation console will play the previous generation of games. There is no gearanteed upgrade path for console games.
 
Is that the right video for this story???

upload_2018-9-12_15-4-47.png
 
I'm amazed that mobile is so popular for games.

I would never even consider installing a game, any game, on any of my mobile devices.

For me there is one place and one place only for enjoying games:

On a proper desktop, at a proper desk, sitting in a proper desk chair, with a proper monitor, proper keyboard and proper mouse.


I guess mobile devices are very accessible though, in that everyone above the age of 12 has one these days, so I guess that helps drive the numbers.
 
Take out browser games / Facebook games / Solitaire / etc. then do a comparison IMO.
 
vegeta535 said:
Not really. Console games drop in price rather quickly nowadays also. After a month you can typically get a AAA game like God of war for $40. You can get horizon Dawn zero compelete for as low as $15 after a year. These are the major titles. Lesser titles hit the bargin bin faster and cheaper.
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This heavily depends on the console. I was looking for some WII games and some of the Nintendo selects are selling USED at 75-150% of NEW MSRP when they came out....

I was looking through wal-mart.com, amazon, eBay, and Gamestop for reference.

Nintendo is the apple of console hardware it seems.

And I have no bias, really...i've been mostly a PC gamer (See sig).

I also have a New 2DS XL I use for travel & I just purchased a Wii U (arrives Sat...)
 
I think a big part of the drive towards PC gaming is coming from streamers on Twitch and Youtube. People are seeing the advantage of PC gaming over console. Especially when you have a new game coming out, like BlackOps 4 Blackout which is in PS4 beta right now, having all the streamers hyped up about the PC beta. Everything is streamed these days. And the majority of the top streamers are PC gamers. Viewers that may be console games are now wanting a piece of that PC gaming action.
 
/dev/null said:
This heavily depends on the console. I was looking for some WII games and some of the Nintendo selects are selling USED at 75-150% of NEW MSRP when they came out....

I was looking through wal-mart.com, amazon, eBay, and Gamestop for reference.

Nintendo is the apple of console hardware it seems.

And I have no bias, really...i've been mostly a PC gamer (See sig).

I also have a New 2DS XL I use for travel & I just purchased a Wii U (arrives Sat...)
Click to expand...

Enjoy the U! I still use mine heavily. I haven't gotten around to picking up a Switch (though it's still planned) but there are some excellent games on the U.
 
/dev/null said:
This heavily depends on the console. I was looking for some WII games and some of the Nintendo selects are selling USED at 75-150% of NEW MSRP when they came out....

I was looking through wal-mart.com, amazon, eBay, and Gamestop for reference.

Nintendo is the apple of console hardware it seems.

And I have no bias, really...i've been mostly a PC gamer (See sig).

I also have a New 2DS XL I use for travel & I just purchased a Wii U (arrives Sat...)
Click to expand...
Well that is Nintendo games. They always been like that. Nintendo games even on PC would of been the same. Still there are tons of great games you can get for cheap even on current gen if you wait just like PC. Hell until recently you could get 20% off on new release games from amazon. Plus you can sale console games for decent amount after you are done with them soon after release.
 
Uh huh. I just bought Doom, great game for $10 and I am enjoying it on my ancient i5 750 from long ago. I did lever in a GTX 1070 not that long ago and my 8 year old machine runs Doom really well.

PCMR FTW!
 
cageymaru said:
Well the really cool thing is that notebooks that have crappy on-board graphics can be upgraded to gaming rigs with external GPU cages. GPUs have gotten much cheaper in the used market and all games will run on stuff from 3 generations ago if you turn the settings down. Then you have stuff like the Steam Link that allows you to stream and play your PC games on your smartphone with onscreen or any controller that will connect to a PC. Heck Valve even paid for the development of tools to translate Windows games to Linux.

It is a different PC gaming world than the limited options that we had during the Xbox 360 era. ;)
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Oh, I get you. Once upon a time I upgraded my whole computer (MBoard, CPU, RAM & Video card) every 2 years. Occasionally, a new video card in between. I was spending so much $$$ on it. Then I bought a house and there was less $$$ for upgrades. Plus I kind of got tired of every time a new game came out my video card couldn't play with the highest settings, so I bought a new video card. Or a new monitor for the ultra high resolution. The console is convenient lasts upward of 5 years between upgrades, and more economical. :D
 
Anyone who answered mobile should not be categorized as a "gamer". :rolleyes:
 
Doesn't surprise me.

I don't own a console this generation. First generation I've skipped in a very very long time. Why? They didn't push the envelope. It's a glorified mid-range PC in a box.

The gens that came before it at least tried to do something different design wise to get a little bit of "wow factor" from their games. It'd usually be a momentarily decent leap in tech.
 
focbde said:
With the difference now in versions of console in terms of power etc, the difference between PC and Console gaming is shrinking...
Click to expand...


I guess I don't understand exactly what less of a difference you're talking about in regards to the PC and Console. I know you mentioned power, but .... no. Not even close. They are still struggling to get 30FPS at 4K or the PS4 Pro fake 4K

It can't be games. PC see's 10x more games released than anything else. It can't be on price of games. PC games routinely fall in price after a set period of time, granted so do some console games but not generally. It can't be controls, the PC has superior controls with mouse and keyboard. It def can't be performance as the PC has always destroyed consoles in that area. The Xbox X and PS4 Pro are using APU's with performance from ... several years ago.

Now, with all that said, the consoles do have some exclusive titles that I would love to see on the PC. Also, the PC does have a serious cheating problem with some multi-player games. BF1 is inundated with cheaters and so will BF5. World of Tanks, War Thunder, etc and even World of Warcraft still has a bot that works brilliantly called Chimpeon Key Sender / Auto Clicker. It gets around WoW's "warden" cheat protection by streaming the Chimpeon "pixel" engine via direct connection from a secondary PC such as a NUC or Laptop. The spec's only need be low powered.

There are a handful of pro's and con's.

I love my PC. Can't imagine getting that experience from $150 used console.
 
SixFootDuo said:
I guess I don't understand exactly what less of a difference you're talking about in regards to the PC and Console. I know you mentioned power, but .... no. Not even close. They are still struggling to get 30FPS at 4K or the PS4 Pro fake 4K
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MavericK said:
And yet I can play the same game on PC at double the framerate and higher resolution than on my PS4 Pro.

I agree with you that the divide is shrinking, but power-wise we're nowhere near parity. And it makes sense, the cost difference is massive as well.
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J3RK said:
I think it shrunk for like five minutes. There's not even an updated console that comes anywhere close to top end current or upcoming RTX GPUs, and there is no console with anything like higher end CPUs available right now.

I guess it's "close enough" for your average mainstream "gamer" type, but not for people with discerning hardware tastes. :D
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Sorry, should have been more detailed in my post... :D

I don't mean consoles are close to the performance of a PC... I mean that one of the previous benefits of a console is fading. Used to be there was one console - that was your lot. You knew that performance would not vary and a title would be tailored/tuned to that hardware.

Now there's multiple versions of the hardware... pay more, get more power/performance options in game. Not too dissimilar to the PC world and so the PC in that sense is at less of a disadvantage compared to previous.
 
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I recently brought a ps4 pro after not having a console for the last 14 years. Most PC gaming seems to be chasing after the esports/streamer market and fewer and fewer games I enjoy are starting to show up. Picked up Spiderman, Uncharted 4, Horizon Zero Dawn, and God of War and was amazed at how enjoyable they were. Yeah it's 30fps but 30fps is better than no fps, these games are well polished, AAA single player games that remind me of my youth playing Metal Gear Solid, Resident Evil 2, and Ocarina of Time. The softer checkboard faux 4k doesn't really bother me maybe because I'm almost 40 now and my eyes are worse or maybe because I sit far enough from the TV that it doesn't matter but the games look to be 80% as good looking as a high end PC. I'll still get multiplatform games on my PC like Cyberpunk 2077, etc. but the exclusives and experience I've had with my ps4 pro have been well worth it. Hopefully the design AMD provides Sony for the ps5 will be ryzen based and allow for 60fps gameplay in the future.
 
FarleyM said:
I recently brought a ps4 pro after not having a console for the last 14 years. Most PC gaming seems to be chasing after the esports/streamer market and fewer and fewer games I enjoy are starting to show up. Picked up Spiderman, Uncharted 4, Horizon Zero Dawn, and God of War and was amazed at how enjoyable they were. Yeah it's 30fps but 30fps is better than no fps, these games are well polished, AAA single player games that remind me of my youth playing Metal Gear Solid, Resident Evil 2, and Ocarina of Time. The softer checkboard faux 4k doesn't really bother me maybe because I'm almost 40 now and my eyes are worse or maybe because I sit far enough from the TV that it doesn't matter but the games look to be 80% as good looking as a high end PC. I'll still get multiplatform games on my PC like Cyberpunk 2077, etc. but the exclusives and experience I've had with my ps4 pro have been well worth it. Hopefully the design AMD provides Sony for the ps5 will be ryzen based and allow for 60fps gameplay in the future.
Click to expand...
Agree totally... bought a PS4 Pro about 10 months ago and whilst it will never replace my main PC gaming rig, I actually really like it for what it is... and there are great exclusives as you say. Loved the Drake's series...
 
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