EA Earnings Show That PC Sales Are Growing, While Consoles Are On The Decline
PC gaming is on the decline. This is something I’ve heard a lot over the last year, but I’ve had a hard time finding any evidence to support it. Now if only there were a major company that released games on all major platforms, and released their sales figures for each, so that we could compare them. Oh wait, that’s exactly what EA has done.
EA recently released their Q1 earnings report, and toward the bottom they listed a breakdown of net revenue by platform. And the results may or may not surprise you. Rather than making you scroll through the whole document (which can be found here), I’ve pasted the relevant info below.
| Platform Net Revenue | |||||||
| Q1 | Q2 | Q3 | Q4 | Q1 | YOY % | ||
| FY12 | FY12 | FY12 | FY12 | FY13 | Change | ||
| Xbox 360 | 345 | 213 | 331 | 454 | 292 | (15%) | |
| PLAYSTATION 3 | 308 | 169 | 314 | 432 | 267 | (13%) | |
| Wii | 42 | 35 | 49 | 20 | 8 | (81%) | |
| PlayStation 2 | 3 | 15 | 7 | 3 | 2 | (33%) | |
| Total Consoles | 698 | 432 | 701 | 909 | 569 | (18%) | |
| Mobile | 57 | 55 | 70 | 87 | 69 | 21% | |
| PlayStation Handhelds | 11 | 17 | 14 | 6 | 10 | (9%) | |
| Nintendo Handhelds | 8 | 7 | 15 | 5 | 9 | 13% | |
| Total Mobile and Handhelds | 76 | 79 | 99 | 98 | 88 | 16% | |
| PC | 205 | 178 | 214 | 334 | 276 | 35% | |
| Other | 20 | 26 | 47 | 27 | 22 | 10% | |
| Total GAAP Net Revenue | 999 | 715 | 1061 | 1368 | 955 | (4%) | |
As you can see, PC sales sit just below the Xbox 360, and a little above the PS3. That’s right, PC game sales currently pull in more revenue for EA than the PS3 sales. But that’s not the most interesting part. If you compare Q1 of last year and this year, you’ll get the year over year change, which is the last column. All three major consoles have lost money (81% decline to the Wii, ouch), but PC sales have risen by a whopping 35%.
It’s really difficult to speculate as to why the numbers fall the way they do. One of the easiest things to point to is the fact that all of the consoles are due for a refresh, and the market knows it. Of course, that would only account for the decline in console sales. It’ll be interesting to see how the next year’s sales figures look, to see if PC sales continue to increase. Dispose your broken PCs at https://www.gigacycle.co.uk.
