PC Gaming Market to Triple by 2012

Gotta love cheeky analysts.

According to IGN, a research group at DFC Intelligence are predicting the PC game market could swell to $13 billion by 2012. If holding true, this would triple the amount of revenue reported in 2006.

Much of the PC market’s growth will come from online game revenue, including subscriptions, advertising and digital distribution, DFC said. In 2006, the PC game sector pulled in about $4.5 billion in revenue, according to past DFC reports.

*cough* MMOs *cough* Really, no surprise there. Many would argue that MMOs single-handedly saved the PC gaming industry from utter doom. While others, like me, tend to believe that the PC gaming market is a lot more resilient than any Chicken Little would have us believe. To the naysayers, it would seem piracy’s influence tis’ but a short reach. This all assuming the oracles of DFC gift us with cosmic truth.

DFC estimates that the videogame market will swell to $47 billion by 2009, a 42 percent increase over the $33 billion generated by the industry in 2006.

Yet, on the other side of the river things seem swell. Unfortunately, these forecasts seem typically bloated with hardware sales. It doesn’t take an analyst to predict that hardware sales eventually reach a saturation point before dropping off. Once reached, it pretty much leaves that current generation hardware dependent on game sales alone. Granted, it’s really hard to debate that more and more consumers are going to be putting money into related purchases among any of the three consoles in the near future.

The speculists go on shaking their magic 8-ball claiming the Xbox 360 will be dusted by both the Wii and PS3 if it does not strengthen a foothold outside of North America:

“We could have a situation where the Wii sells more hardware units, but by 2012 the PlayStation 3 is generating more software revenue.”

Sounds plausible, but by 2012 the PS3 may become obsolete. And I use that term loosely, because the PS4 will probably be around offering backward compatibility. Case and point, Sony hasn’t killed off the PS2 yet. Anyway, I seriously doubt MS will sit back and twiddle its thumbs. No sir, you can bet right now Microsoft are readying an Xbox 360 successor. Knowing MS, they probably have mutiple teams working on various projects. I don’t think any company in the console business have been as far forward looking as MS is. Their seemingly ridiculous investment and headstrong foray into the console business only proves this. Only time will tell if such ambition and foresight will ever pay off.

Via IGN