Geek math: Gaming PC = Consoles x 2.

The PC Gaming Alliance revealed that the PC Gaming Hardware market in 2009 was over two times larger than the combined home console market (Wii + PS2 + PS3 + Xbox 360), a trend that is expected to continue for the next 5 years.

Revenues from consumer PCs capable of gaming that shipped with a discrete GPU (which excludes Netbooks and integrated graphics-based PCs) totaled $54.6 billion in 2009, and are forecasted to grow to $61.3 billion by 2014. These figures are based on an estimated 61.5 million PCs (desktops and laptops) with a primary use of gaming.

The report also estimates the worldwide number of consumers playing with discrete graphics solutions on their PCs (desktops and notebooks) to be 212.6 million for 2009, a number that is expected to grow to about 322 million by 2014.

Interestingly, the Asia Pacific region continues to be the world's largest hardware gaming market, with approximately 33% market share. The report also mentions that this is primarily driven by South Korea, who famously uses the PC market and Starcraft as an effective way to lobotomize their citizens and thus one-up China by effectively creating a zero-child policy.

Western Europe and the United States represent 24% and 22% respectively. The rest of the world follows with 21.5%.

Matt Ployhar, PCGA Research Committee Chairman notes: “One of the biggest trends I’m seeing in the 2009 Horizon’s hardware report indicates a strong demand for more capable mobile based systems by PC Gamers".

Richard Shim, research manager at IDC covering PCs adds: “_These new usage-based systems are hardware configurations optimized for an improved user experience. Consumers are often willing to pay more for such an experience. In the case of gaming PCs, up to 25% more as compared to a mainstream system.”_

Source: The PC Gaming Alliance