kazuyamishima
Member
Thing is, this is revenue based, and it seems that the numbers are incomplete too. (According to Installbase).
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Japan’s PC Gaming Market Size Triples In 4 Years (CESA Data)
- Thread starter Thick Thighs Save Lives
- Start date
- Analysis Platform
snapdragon
Member
14 exclusive games in 4 years is just insanely pathetic. Sony and Microsoft would have been eaten alive in any other console generation, glad nintendo is on top and PC is gaining traction.
snapdragon
Member
Exactly
ArtHands
Thinks buying more servers can fix a bad patch
There is a reason why people here are pushing Sony to release a Playstation launcher on PC. They want the Playstation brand to survive on PC in case something happens to consoles
ahtlas7
Member
How is an open ecosystem cancerous?
rodrigolfp
Haptic Gamepads 4 Life
As it is open it can grow to "infinite".
Woopah
Member
There has been growth in the console market, it's just hard to maintain growth when Switch is in its 8th year (though PS5 did contribute in 2023).
We should start seeing more noticeable growth once Switch 2 launches.
Katatonic
Member
thicc_girls_are_teh_best
Member
That's been my point: the only growth happening in Japan for console (if it's been happening) is due to Nintendo. Microsoft are absolutely not pulling their weight there and PlayStation has dropped noticeably because software sales for PS5 have been generally abysmal. In a few weeks it'll start tracking behind PS4 in unit sales as well.
Nintendo alone can't overperform to the level of getting the console side of the market to grow in Japan when PlayStation and Xbox are unappealling offerings there. My bigger question is, will what's happening in Japan start happening in other markets where console is generally seen as more stable? Like in various European countries, will it start happening? Because we already know in parts of Europe PS5 is falling behind PS4 in LTD; in terms of total software revenue it's not as easy to say.
There is little really threatening growth of PC in those places, however, and that growth will likely come at some expense of PlayStation future market growth, or even retaining typical market share, in the same territories (Xbox is already dead in Europe aside UK and even there it's not doing too well). Nintendo might be affected a bit, but not nearly to the same degree. It'd be relative to the effect PC has had on mobile in Japan, which is to say...within a margin of error.
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Woopah
Member
We are seeing the situation in Japan being replicated in countries like Taiwan and South Korea, but not elsewhere.
Outside Asia, the PS ecosystem is still seen as a primary place for many of the biggest franchises. Even if the high price is slowing down adoption of PS5 hardware, there's still a lot of people paying money to Sony on PS4, and PS5 has a high level of spend per user.
So I'm not really concerned about PS in the West. It and PC can coexist
Ronin_7
Member
Tripling from almost nothing is nothing to brag about.
PC gaming is still largely driven by China.
"China remains a powerhouse in the global games industry. It is the largest games market globally with one third of global PC games revenue generated domestically. At the same time, Chinese game companies are expanding their reach globally, accounting for 39% of PC games revenue worldwide."
nikopartners.com
PC gaming is still largely driven by China.
"China remains a powerhouse in the global games industry. It is the largest games market globally with one third of global PC games revenue generated domestically. At the same time, Chinese game companies are expanding their reach globally, accounting for 39% of PC games revenue worldwide."
China PC Games Market & 5-Year Forecast Report
Navigating China's PC Games Market: Global impact, regulations, and licensing challenges. Explore the reports on our website.
nikopartners.com
kazuyamishima
Member
Palworld just released on PS a few days ago and Wukong is a huge success mainly to China, which is very big on PC.
Gaiff
SBI’s Resident Gaslighter
>Slight dipI think worldwide might look quite different.
PC gaming is on a massive decline worldwide. It would be great if you could make a thread or something about it
PC gaming is dying gaiz!! Make a thread about it!
Sentenza
Member
13% of Japan's gaming market is far from nothing.
In fact, with all consoles combined being at 20% and Nintendo Switch being the lion's share of that number, it's more than the Playstation brand can brag at the moment.
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Senua
Gold Member
I've seen that Pc gaming has been dying since I've joined gaf. I'm sure much before that also.
Why won't it die already!
ThisIsMyDog
Member
It's 2024, some AAA games are selling half of their copies on Steam and there are people who can still claim that PC gaming is dying.
Ronin_7
Member
Mobile still dominates Japan and the world. PC gaming will always be a niche hobby for enthusiasts with the exception of China.
I never said PlayStation wasn't niche.
Holammer
Member
Not to mention how the ease of publishing on PC makes a lot of games PC launch exclusive au naturale, sometimes for months.It's 2024, some AAA games are selling half of their copies on Steam and there are people who can still claim that PC gaming is dying.
Recently UFO 50.
ThisIsMyDog
Member
So what is not a niche by your definition, if PC and Playstation are, then Nintendo too, so only mobile gaming is not a niche?
Sentenza
Member
Ok? But we weren't talking about mobile.
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TrebleShot
Member
The power of Steam Deck is undeniable.
Ronin_7
Member
Zathalus
Member
PC has several hundred million to over a billion depending on how you count it. Even at the lower end I wouldn’t exactly classify that as niche. Smaller then mobile sure, but nothing about it is niche.
Ronin_7
Member
Without China? Not even close and most are on shitty laptops playing Facebook trash.
Try again.
Zathalus
Member
Yes without China. Even your own link and Steam survey results show that China is 30-40% of the market. That still leaves well over a hundred million Steam users for the rest of the world. Add in all the other PC stuff that is not Steam and it is clearly not niche outside of China.
Utamaru1706
Neo Member
The overwhelming majority of those PCs that you mentioned are only used for work, and not for gaming purposes, in which the amount will be much much smaller than that.
Meanwhile, mobile gaming is extremely huge in Asia, and it's available on pretty much everywhere, from high-end to low-end ones, because mobile games are much more accessible compared to PC in terms of device (you can buy those cheap Chinese phones for like $100-150, and play lots of games on it).
I'm surprised that there are still people who underestimate mobile game industry, despite it's currently hold the biggest market share (it literally beats PC and consoles market shares combined), and the amount of money it generates literally gimps pretty much anything that consoles and PC made...
Zathalus
Member
The overwhelming amount of monthly active users on Steam (as in actually log on and play games), with 80-90% of them having dedicated GPUs are used for work? That doesn’t check out at all.
I’m also not underestimating anything. Of course mobile is far larger than console and PC gaming. That doesn’t make either of them niche though. A market the makes tens of billions of dollars in revenue each year is not niche.
ArtHands
Thinks buying more servers can fix a bad patch
Tripling from almost nothing is nothing to brag about.
PC gaming is still largely driven by China.
"China remains a powerhouse in the global games industry. It is the largest games market globally with one third of global PC games revenue generated domestically. At the same time, Chinese game companies are expanding their reach globally, accounting for 39% of PC games revenue worldwide."
China PC Games Market & 5-Year Forecast Report
Navigating China's PC Games Market: Global impact, regulations, and licensing challenges. Explore the reports on our website.
13% now is more than Sony Playstation 5 in Japan now.
thicc_girls_are_teh_best
Member
Maybe you're right about Western countries but, again, which Western countries? Sales for PS5 in some European markets are down more than half vs. last year. I know stock issues created supply problems for 2021 and 2022, but you'd think demand would be strong enough post-2023 to see softer declines than what's been happening?
Because in part due to those declines PS5 is tracking some 2 million behind PS4 launch-aligned globally, and that isn't due to the US (where it's most ahead launch-aligned) or even Japan (where it's been ahead but will start pacing behind in a few weeks). It can't be markets like China, where PS4 wasn't even a thing so there's nothing to compare PS5's performance to. Maybe it's some parts of Middle East/Africa, but I don't think console sales are strong enough in those territories to have the global impact we're seeing.
Same goes for India, surprisingly enough. So it could be some LATAM countries, but that'd probably just boil down to Mexico & Brazil, and the latter would've been a net benefit for PS5 for the longer while because MS shot up the price for Series X & S like crazy.
I think you're highlighting a bigger problem which is that what's happening in Japan is being replicated in markets where PS by all accounts should be poised for growth, since those markets are likely unsaturated for console gaming. But even more an issue perhaps, is that in some European territories where things should be solidified, there could be market share declines impacting their globals when combined with slow growth in some key newer markets because of more competition with PC.
Still surprising how some folks aren't getting the point yet.
Well everything is a niche, it's just some are mainstream and some aren't. But specifically for PS, the problem is in markets like Japan it's very possible that PC can overtake it in market share for AAA install base at the rate things are going.
The other issue is, like
Woopah
was saying, there are other markets following Japan's trend when it comes to PC growing and console shrinking. That should be a concern to Sony in particular because they don't have as dedicated a core base as Nintendo does, and they don't have such massive vested interests in the PC space that Microsoft does. Gaming is a main pillar for Sony and console gaming specifically is THE core of their gaming pillar.So if console is shrinking (or under threat to shrink) in some of these markets, and SIE can't seem to make enough inroads on PC and/or mobile to offset that, then Sony as a whole will be hurting. I think this huge GAAS gambit was part of them making those inroads but aside from Helldivers 2 it hasn't been successful so far, and that game isn't the super-hot commodity it was during the launch period.
Which just leads back to me feeling, that SIE aren't doing enough in truly doubling-down on PlayStation as a console platform. There are so many areas where PS could be better, but they just aren't making those moves & investments. Or if they are, they aren't being fast enough with some of the easier ones which are still MIA. There's always a cause for growth in one segment of a market and given all segments combined form a finite size (at this point), then chances are growth in one area is coming at the expense of size/stability in another.
The way some companies operate tho (SIE increasingly over the years; Microsoft 100% egregiously past few years), you'd think they feel they've done everything right for their console and thus any stagnation/decline for their platform in the market can't be put on them. When that's completely false.
TBF, that 13% is spread out between Steam, EGS, GOG, Riot's service, battle.NET and whatever other PC gaming storefronts/launchers.
Though OS-wise, it's likely vast majority Windows.
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Woopah
Member
The big differences between Japan and USA/Europe are:
1. PC is already well established in these places.
You're not going to see crazy growth rates like tripling in 4 years. The competition that PC provides to PS5 in 2025 will be similar to the level it provided in 2021.
2. The software situation.
In Japan, the past few years have seen Switch exclusives make up 40%+ of console games sold.
That is very very unlikely to happen in North America or Europe, where franchises like FIFA, College Football or COD are as big if not bigger than any Switch exclusive. And those franchises are very popular on PS.
So the situation in Japan is unlikely to be replicated outside East Asia.
Console gaming has seen more growth in the last 5 years outside Japan, because it's less reliant on the aging Switch. 2023 was a massive year for the sector.
2024 is a year of decline as all 3 systems are over 3 years old, and Sony isn't doing crazy price actions to hit an overly ambitious hardware target.
1. PC is already well established in these places.
You're not going to see crazy growth rates like tripling in 4 years. The competition that PC provides to PS5 in 2025 will be similar to the level it provided in 2021.
2. The software situation.
In Japan, the past few years have seen Switch exclusives make up 40%+ of console games sold.
That is very very unlikely to happen in North America or Europe, where franchises like FIFA, College Football or COD are as big if not bigger than any Switch exclusive. And those franchises are very popular on PS.
So the situation in Japan is unlikely to be replicated outside East Asia.
Console gaming has seen more growth in the last 5 years outside Japan, because it's less reliant on the aging Switch. 2023 was a massive year for the sector.
2024 is a year of decline as all 3 systems are over 3 years old, and Sony isn't doing crazy price actions to hit an overly ambitious hardware target.
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ArtHands
Thinks buying more servers can fix a bad patch
I would say there are numerous reasons including Playstation games on PC Steam, the different form factors, amount of high quality games on PC etc
Which is the wrong reason for the hunt. I get that they don't want emulators but they but they should consider releasing there games on PC. They could even have they own launcher if really wanted too but this is Nintendo who still does business like they are still in the 90's. There will be developers that will make a switch 2 emulator once the code is around an it's on the internet it's preserved forever.
TrebleShot
Member
Un deniable