Newzoo PC & Console Gaming Market Report 2024

[Yurinka]

Newzoo just released a new report.

It will help you understand why companies like Sony are expanding in GaaS, PC, 1st (and 3rd) person shooters, emerging markets or cloud gaming:
Newzoo just released a new report:

PC grew more than consoles during 2023 (game+addons+game subs graph, doesn't include hardware and accesories)

Add-on revenue (so mostly GaaS) was 42% of the game revenue in PC and 41% in console for USA+UK (not worldwide numbers for this graph):

Obviously pre-pandemic+covid bump had a bigger gwoth that PC+console will have during going back to normality and next few years:

Userbase growth is expected to slow down, but the userbase is huge and continues growing:

Most of the most played games in PC+home consoles are multiplatform GaaS:

After lockdowns playtime decreased because people went back to activities outside home:

Playtime is focused on a few dozen games, which are multiplatform GaaS released in previous years:

59% of the new 2023 titles revenue came from new GaaS. 90% of the new 2023 titles revenue was made by 43 games:

3 of the 4 most played genres in PC and console are shooters:

Less than 3 dozen publishers made 80% of the console+PC 2023 MAU:

Popular IPs including remasters/remakes perform better among top titles:

Cinema+tv show adaptations increaase related IP game MAU:

CoD and FIFA succesfully expanded to mobile, better reaching new countries and female audience:

19% of the players play in both console(PS or XB or Nintendo) and PC. 44% of the PC players also play on console. 46% of the console players also play on PC:

New PC or console gamers come mostly from emerging markets, where there's potential for cloud gaming, which is already starting to work there:

 

[Systemshock2023]

Related to the 6 year and older games dominating:

Something that I never understood is why publishers never consider their own back catalogues as competition to push for higher quality in games.

New games have to always be better than the ones released in the past, otherwise why would I buy them? This is even a thing in consoles these days thanks to backwards compatibility.

Old games are cheaper, and on PC are easier to run , are fully patched up and might have mods or even total conversions available.

In the past I could understand that it was second nature to go for new games as the leaps in technology were gigantic and they also brought gameplay improvements alongside graphics, but since the 8th generation this has not been the case many times.

 

[Yurinka]

Related to the 6 year and older games dominating:

Something that I never understood is why publishers never consider their own back catalogues as competition to push for higher quality in games.

New games have to always be better than the ones released in the past, otherwise why would I buy them? This is even a thing in consoles these days thanks to backwards compatibility.

Old games are cheaper, and on PC are easier to run , are fully patched up and might have mods or even total conversions available.

In the past I could understand that it was second nature to go for new games as the leaps in technology were gigantic and they also brought gameplay improvements alongside graphics, but since the 8th generation this has not been the case many times.

Devs try to make their games as good as they can for the player type their targe, but they are human beings with limited skills and sometimes they fail.

And well, sometimes they succed but the type of player they targeted isn't the type of player where you're included. There are players with different and conflicting tastes and preferences, so it's impossible to appeal everybody. Something person A will love is going to be something that person B will hate. And there will be someting else that person B will love and person A will hate.

They consider previous titles and take notes of many things like sales, media reviews, user reviews, social media or forums (score + specific points that people liked, disliked or suggested to add) and others both for previous games of the IP and similar previous games from the company or the competition. They also consider other not that directly related successful titles to try to learn something from them and apply it to the mix. Plus tons of internal metrics to see player preferences in their games (weapons, stages, playstyles, modes, cosmetics, if some specific part was too easy or difficult, etc).

I worked making related documents, and saw some related ones for the -back then- new entries for a few top Ubisoft IPs as part of the reference materials that later devs were going to have in case they wanted to consider it for the improvements and changes added in the next entry. Depending on the team and the dev, they took very seriously that data, feedback and suggestion and heavily considered it for the game. In other cases pretty much ignored it and did something else they wanted to do. But hey, they had a nice powerpoint with all the data.

 

[TubzGaming]

 

[Nhomnhom]

Seems like complete made up stuff, how is The Sims 4 and Rocket League beating Dota 2 MAUs on PC?

Starfield is mentioned as the only single player title to appear in 2023 top 10 average MAUs on PC but Hogwarts and BG3 don't appear?

 

[anonpuffs]

I think you read that chart wrong. Add-on content is not 68% of pc spending and 65% of console spending, it's 42 and 43% respectively. "Premium" sales means full game sales, they even have a separate microtransaction category listed.

 

[Cool hand luke]

Obviously pre-pandemic+covid bump had a bigger gwoth that PC+console will have during going back to normality and next few years:

The real headline here - consoles are expected to grow to encompass 60% of the market, up from 57% now, while PC will shrink from 43 to 40.

While both platforms are (optimistically) estimated to grow, PC remains a diversion to consoles' main event.

 

[mckmas8808]

Very interesting information.

 

[mckmas8808]

The real headline here - consoles are expected to grow to encompass 60% of the market, up from 57% now, while PC will shrink from 43 to 40.

While both platforms are (optimistically) estimated to grow, PC remains a diversion to consoles' main event.

And yet we have fools like Micheal Pacther saying Nintendo and Sony are doing wrong with sticking with the current gaming model.

 

[Yurinka]

I think you read that chart wrong. Add-on content is not 68% of pc spending and 65% of console spending, it's 42 and 43% respectively. "Premium" sales means full game sales, they even have a separate microtransaction category listed.

Just doubled checked it and yes, I had a mistake and added the wrong numbers. Add-ons are microtransactions+dlc+passes, so in case of this graph is 30+12=42% for PC and 33+8=41% for console.

Subs would be 2% for PC and console (I assume in this case this would be the subscription revenue cut part that goes for the publisher/dev of each game and doesn't include their part that goes for the platform holder).

P.S.: Please notice that unlike most of the other graphs this specific one is for US+UK only. So more or less representative of the west, which often relatively share very similar habits. Asian markets like China (huge chunk of the global market) are way more focused on F2P/GaaS.