Gaming PC shipments dropped 13.2% in 2023 while gaming monitors saw growth

[midian182]

In brief: Like so many markets, gaming PC shipments were down in 2023, falling 13.2% year-over-year to 44 million units. The overall PC industry also declined, but one bright spot was gaming monitors, which saw growth throughout the year. The good news for manufacturers and consumers is that 2024 is expected to be better.

Desktop and laptop workstation shipments fell 8.8% last year, according to IDC, representing the second-worst drop since the analyst's records began in 2008. Gartner, meanwhile, said that 2023 was the worst year in history for the overall PC industry, with shipments down 14.8% year-over-year.

IDC has looked at individual sections of the market in its latest report. While gaming PC shipments were down 13.2%, gaming monitors actually grew 20.3% during 2023. Delving deeper, shipments of Premium monitors with a refresh rate of 165Hz or higher were up around 13%, while Performance monitors (144Hz to <165Hz) were down 4%.

For 2024, IDC predicts that gaming PCs will finally start to see growth – imitating many other industries that suffered last year – though it will only be a modest 1%, with notebooks being the main driver. Gaming monitors, meanwhile, will continue on their upward trajectory, growing 13.6% across the year.

Jitesh Ubrani, research manager for IDC's Mobility and Consumer Device Trackers, said that even though the economy continues to struggle, shipments for gaming PCs have been a bit more resilient due to sustained demand. He notes that there's also been an upward trend in pricing as the premium segment of the market remains strong. Ubrani believes this area will remain healthy due to dedicated and affluent buyers who are less impacted by the economy.

Jay Chou, research manager for IDC's Worldwide Client Devices Trackers, says gaming monitor growth is outpacing gaming PCs thanks to the former's declining prices and widespread adoption of certain specs, including refresh rates over 165Hz, 1ms or less response times, and a move to 2560 x 1440 and higher resolutions.

Looking beyond this year, IDC believes gaming PC shipments will reach 52 million units in 2028 with monitors reaching 29.6 million during the same period. The firm forecasts that gaming monitor prices will fall each year as gaming PCs move in the opposite direction, with average selling prices reaching $1,101 due to the popularity of premium graphics cards and notebooks.

Finally, IDC writes that Premium GPU shipments will only grow 3% this year while Performance GPUs decline. Both will get a big boost in 2025 thanks to the Nvidia RTX 5000-series and AMD's Radeon RX 8000 cards.

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https://www.techspot.com/news/102359-gaming-pc-shipments-dropped-132-2023-while-gaming.html

 

[godrilla]

They are comparing the drop to q3 2022, which is before the mass tech layoffs started happening 1 quarter later, eg Google 12k employees in q1/2023 and continues till this day across the tech world. I bet if we compare the numbers to prepandemic the numbers will still be up significantly. Interesting how they are predicting gpu sales up in 2025 and 2026 for consumers when ai will affect pricing across the board. If Intel Battlemage can disrupt the market it might be possible.

 

[Uncle Al]

The usual business trend. Nobody is losing money, just not making as much. As for games, the overhead cost is still fairly low, these price increases are nothing but pure greed, plain and simple ....

 

[Theinsanegamer]

The usual business trend. Nobody is losing money, just not making as much. As for games, the overhead cost is still fairly low, these price increases are nothing but pure greed, plain and simple ....

Greedflation is alive and well, and will continue until morale improves (or until spending collapses).

 

[Neatfeatguy]

I used to run 3 - 24" 1080p monitors. Ran them using Nvidia's 2D surround. Lots of games would work across 5760x1080p resolution, but most of them didn't natively function 100% at that resolution. Sometimes menus didn't show up correctly or sometimes cutscenes didn't display properly so it was a hit and miss as to what games worked well, what games you had to change the resolution before/during/after gameplay and what games didn't work at all.

The very first picture looks like the girl is playing LoL - I haven't played the game much in the past 5 years so I could be mistaken, but when I did try the game at 5760x1080 some years ago the game ran just fine at that resolution. However, the HUD, instead of everything being centralized on the main monitor (health/mana/skills - as you see on the center monitor in the picture) it's stretched out over all 3 monitors.
* The map that should be in the lower right corner is now all the way over on the right monitor in the lower right corner - out of your main line of vision.
* Then the target (the person you've clicked on), that image should be in the upper left corner of the monitor is now on the left monitor in the upper left corner out of your main line of vision.

I found myself having to turn my head to the right and left to view things and taking my attention away from the center monitor where most of the action is taking place so it wasn't very convenient playing at 5760x1080. I went back to just 1920x1080 and it made playing the game so much easier.

I like having multiple monitors, but I don't regret going to a single 32" 2560x1440p for gaming. I did eventually pick up a second 32" monitor, but not to extend games across both of them. I still stick to gaming on a single screen.