I suppose the writing has been on the wall for a while, eh? Looks like those PC Gaming fiends may win in the end. According to a recent report by Matthew Ball, the CEO of investment firm, Epyllion, the world of console gaming is in a downward spiral. The report asserts that gaming was at its peak from 2011 to 2021. During the beginning of a certain pandemic, gaming had a positive overall future ahead of it! However, in 2022, consumer spending started to plummet.
It’s no coincidence the past few years in the gaming industry have seen record layoffs and studio closures. Then, you have the ballooning AAA budgets, demanding a high-production game sell an insane number of units just to break even — never mind making an actual profit. That scares the executives off, who then force devs to forego creativity to chase market trends. Which, of course, leads to unsatisfactory products. And the cycle repeats itself. But, all isn’t lost! Where console gaming is taking hit after hit, the PC Gaming ecosystem is thriving.
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“PC is a big bright spot, adding 65% more content spend than livingroom console since 2011 and 225% more than combined console — or $30B in total,” Ball’s report affirms. There are many factors Ball lays out that explain the “PC Gaming Boom.” For starters, PC users have an expansive library of content to choose from. You don’t have to worry about “backwards compatibility.” Additionally, PlayStation and Xbox release their “exclusives” over to the PC ecosystem anyway!

and who can forget the big ‘Oof!’ in the PC gaming room?
The real live-service giants such as Fortnite and especially Roblox have been cleaning up on PC. And, let’s get real, PC Gaming is just starting to make more sense. Hardware such as the Steam Deck and, funnily enough, the Nintendo Switch, put more knives into console gaming’s back. Once the gaming industry figured out how to perfectly combine portable and console gaming into one compact machine? We should’ve known our days were numbered then.
Because why the hell would I buy a $500, $600, or $700 console every few years with no guarantee that the games I bought will even be playable in two console generations? Then, you throw the likes of PC giants such as ASUS and Lenovo into the mix? It’s done. In some ways, it’s hard to envision a world where PC Gaming doesn’t become the definitive way to play games with mobile gaming coming in a close second. I’d love for “traditional” consoles to survive. But with such a vicious development cycle tearing it apart, who knows what the landscape will look like over the next five years?
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