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[MastaKiiLA]

The IGN article reads weird saying that mobile gamers are almost half the gaming total, but then cite PC gamers as the biggest at 48%.

In any case, I'm willing to bet that it's a massive undercount of mobile gamers, considering how difficult it is to get consumer data out of China, and how many smaller SEA countries get their games through peripheral apps like Wechat or Line and Facebook. I'd put my money on mobile gaming being the biggest at present, and going forward. Home computers aren't as common in Asia as in the West, when you can outfit the whole family with cheap smartphones, and still have extra money left over, compared to the price of even a basic PC. There's much more utility in a phone than a console or PC.

That said, I wonder how they'd account for internet cafes, which is probably the main way young kids get their PC gaming on in SEA.

 

[jufonuk]

How many of them are filthy casuals? Go on get off my lawn.

 

[PresetError]

Something doesn't add up.

If 53% of 1.42 billion asian gamers play on mobile devices = 752.6 million gamers.
If 17% of 668 million european gamers play on mobile devices = 113.5 million gamers
If 11% of 383 latin american gamers play on mobile devices = 42.1 million gamers
If 4% of 261 north american gamers play on mobile devices = 10.4 million gamers

Adding up all those numbers it means 918.6 million gamers play on mobile devices, which is 29% of the alleged 3.1 billion gamers in total.

If 29% play on mobile devices, only 8% play on consoles and 48% play on PC, where the fuck do the 15% of players that are lacking from this data play videogames on? Do they all play smart refrigerator Skyrim?

Also, this report states the number of gamers in Asia, Europe, Latin America and North America and they all add up to 2.7 billion gamers. It doesn't state the MENA region number of gamers but it implies it's lower than the other markets in size. So where are the 368 million gamers lacking of the 3.1 billion total from?

 

[ScaryBrandon]

And Microsoft doesn't want to sell a console to any of them.

Console gaming has stagnated massively and Microsoft knows that. You can see it everywhere twitch.tv, youtube, esports are all dominated by pc gaming. 1.5 billion pc gamers make the 112m ps4 sales look irrelevant. Microsoft is now trying to compete in the top league and make the endless of pc gamers their customers.

 

[acm2000]

Any old figures from pre smart phone days including every single person who ever played snake on a Nokia?

 

[junguler]

amazing, i love it, games should be enjoyed by everyone.

 

[SaucyJack]

Mobile games don't count, Facebook games don't count and PC doesn't count either.... they are all the same as playing with your calculator to make words like 80085.

Streaming doesn't count either and should result in corporal punishment.

58008 surely

 

[PresetError]

Console gaming has stagnated massively and Microsoft knows that. You can see it everywhere twitch.tv, youtube, esports are all dominated by pc gaming. 1.5 billion pc gamers make the 112m ps4 sales look irrelevant. Microsoft is now trying to compete in the top league and make the endless of pc gamers their customers.

Yeah but the irony is strong with this one. Mobile gaming relies heavily on whales, a small percentage of players that spend a lot of money while the vast majority of the rest of players spend little or no money.

PC is the piracy platform, the free online platform and the bigger discounts for games platform. Many people see PC as a way to save money. Convincing those people to spend is hard.

Console has become the premium platform, the one where most of the users actually spend money. And select few companies are making money from it while the mobile and PC markets are a jungle. Mobile and PC need large amounts of players to be profitable, console can survive and be very profitable being niche.