Jon Peddie sees major growth for PC gaming hardware

Jon Peddie Research reports PC gaming hardware sales will grow faster than expected. The research firm says the PC gaming hardware market will be worth just over $20 billion this year, and expects this to climb towards $34 billion by 2012. JPR believes the current economic troubles may drive more people toward PC gaming, as a HDTV is a significant investment, and consoles are more limited in functionality than PCs.

According to JPR's compound annual growth rate numbers, the mainstream segment (where gaming reportedly motivates only 6% of purchases) will see the most growth of all: 21%, compared to 19% for the "performance" segment and 9% for enthusiasts. Gaming notebooks are showing "strong gains," and JPR says it discovered a "robust market of do-it-yourselfers and consumers who upgrade their PCs with high-performance gaming graphics boards."

Report co-author Ted Pollak comments, "Enthusiast PC gamers often latch onto one or two games that offer multiplayer options and stick to these titles for years. Hardware is where they spend the big bucks. The retail numbers don't capture the casual and digitally distributed games either. Retail software figures are not an accurate barometer for the health of the PC gaming industry."