OGA forecasts growth for PC and smartphones, decline for consoles and handheld

The Open Gaming Alliance has predicted that while the PC gaming will continue to grow through 2019, the console and handheld markets will decline in value.

The numbers were revealed in a preview of its upcoming seventh annual research report, which is compiled by DFC Intelligence and will be released at the end of the month.

It states that the global PC games software market will grow from $26bn in 2014 to $35bn in 2015.

Much of the growth is driven by pure demographics. We continue to identify a core group of consumers for whom playing on the PC is a major pastime,” DFC analyst David Cole said. This is, in fact, a fairly new demographic that skews highly male and is only increasing in buying power.

In past years much of the growth in PC games has been due to adoption of the platform in Asia. Now we are estimating a potential 86m PC gamers outside Asia that we have targeted as market growth drivers. These are the consumers that are driving spending not just on software, but also on PC hardware, as they buy expensive equipment to play, view and record games.”

It also predicts a rise in smartphone and tablet gaming, expecting it to grow from just under $15bn in 2014 to around $34bn.

On the flip side, while it expects the console software market to continue growing through 2017 it then predicts a decline. Handheld software is expected to decline steadily in the years ahead to a measly $1-2bn by 2019.