Agency predicts wildly optimistic view of 2025 PC gaming, then an exodus

The gaming PC ecosystem ought to profit significantly from the pressured transition to Home windows 11, an analyst agency wrote Friday, with a 35 p.c improve in {hardware} gross sales alone throughout 2025. However there are clouds on the horizon: Over the following 5 years, hundreds of thousands will go away PC gaming fully.

Jon Peddie Analysis, which has adopted the PC graphics marketplace for many years, issued the extremely optimistic end result on Friday. The corporate’s prediction is that the marketplace for world PC-based gaming {hardware} — which incorporates desktops and notebooks, DIY, and peripherals/equipment, JPR mentioned — will develop 35 p.c in 2025 to $44.5 billion.

And the precise spending by shoppers could possibly be much more. “JPR applies a purchase order motivation mannequin to the PC gaming {hardware} market, which calculates monetary market magnitude based mostly on the purchasers’ intent to play video video games with the {hardware},” the agency mentioned in a launch. “In consequence, JPR’s information is conservative in relation to whole PC {hardware} expenditure.”

JPR’s report comes a day after market researcher Canalys predicted that client PC gross sales in america alone will dip by 3.9 p.c in 2025 to 25.284 million models, then develop 5.4 p.c in 2026 to 26.651 million. Rival market researcher IDC forecast flat U.S. PC gross sales for the second quarter, although a 6.5 p.c improve for the worldwide PC market.

Tariffs have roiled the U.S. financial system, together with the PC market, boosting and decreasing gross sales as they’ve come and gone. However retail gross sales in August did climb 0.6 p.c, greater than anticipated.

Finest Purchase CEO Corie Bary informed Yahoo Finance that consumers had been in search of offers. “We see nearly everybody in search of worth now,” Barry mentioned. “We really are seeing a client… bifurcated a bit, [that’s] nonetheless prepared to spend in the event that they actually really feel prefer it’s an ideal worth.”

JPR, nonetheless, took into consideration PC gross sales in addition to DIY elements and equipment, all of which has been affected by the Home windows 10-to-Home windows 11 transition, which matches past the monetary price.

“By no means earlier than within the historical past of the Microsoft Home windows working system has there been a pressured {hardware} migration requirement,” mentioned Ted Pollak, JPR’s senior analyst of sport tech, in a press release. “And this can’t be solved by swapping out a graphics card. It requires a CPU improve for over 100 million players, which, in flip, requires a motherboard improve and most probably RAM as properly.”

Pollak mentioned that almost all PC players are merely shopping for new prebuilt programs. However those that constructed their very own programs are ready, too.

The DIY players are additionally ready for this transition, and lots of have been constructing new computer systems alongside their current Home windows 10 PCs, as an alternative of attempting to Frankenstein their present programs,” Pollak mentioned. “This permits them to proceed utilizing their PC till their Home windows 11 builds are full.” 

Bother on the horizon?

JPR has tracked PC graphics for greater than 30 years, and the corporate reported earlier that Intel’s share in PC graphics had sunk to primarily zero.

The long run, nonetheless, appears much less rosy to JPR’s president, Jon Peddie. Peddie mentioned that the agency is projecting a “vital lower in entry-level PC gaming” over the following 5 years, lowering the variety of entry-level players by 13 p.c.

“Included on this drop are over 10 million individuals leaving the PC platform fully,” Peddie mentioned in a press release. “Consoles, handhelds, and cell all provide compelling worth for the budget-limited gamer. Nonetheless, a couple of million entry-level defectors usually are not really leaving the PC platform however are migrating to the costlier {hardware} tiers of midrange and high-end PC {hardware}.”