Jon Peddie Research (JPR),  announced new info on PC Add-in Board (AIB) shipments during Q1’2013.

• Total AIB shipments totaled 14.8 million units
• Nvidia continues to hold a dominant market share position at 64%; in Q1’13, AMD gained 1.4% in AIB market share
• A little over 32 million desktop PCs shipped worldwide in the quarter, a decrease of 13.7%.

JPR publishes a series of reports on the PC Gaming Hardware Market, which covers system and accessories, and looks at 31 countries. More information can be found here: http://www.jonpeddie.com/publications/pc_gaming_hardware_market_report/.

Jon Peddie Research released new research on the PC Gaming segment. Here are some of the highlights:

• There are 54 million Performance and Enthusiast class PC gamers worldwide - Enthusiast and Performance class PC gamers are defined as those who spend over $1,000 on equipment.
• JPR forecasts PC gamers to reach 72 million by 2015
• The PC gaming hardware market was $23.6 Billion in 2012
• The market for PC gaming hardware will reach  $32 billion by 2015
• JPR has found very strong demand in BRIC countries for systems, accessories, and upgrades approaching $4.7 billion in 2012 and growing to $7.7 billion by 2015

International Data Corporation (IDC) published the Worldwide Gaming-Optimized Handheld, Smartphone, and Tablet Gaming 2013–2017 Forecast, on the current state and future direction of smartphone, tablet, and gaming-optimized handheld (GOH) hardware and software. The forecast details the outlook for Apple, Google/Android, Microsoft, Nintendo, Sony, and a wide range of game developers and publishers from a mobile and portable gaming perspective through 2017. Some key point they make are:

• IDC research shows that the number of paying smartphone and tablet gamers will surpass the number of paying GOH gamers worldwide in 2013
• This number will continue to rise at a rapid rate through 2017
• The number of GOH bundles shipped should fall at an average of nearly 7% per year over the next five years
• The installed base of GOH’s is being overwhelmed by smartphones and tablets that are used for casual gaming primarily
•  Total mobile/portable gaming revenue, including digital and packaged game software, GOH hardware bundles, and direct advertising revenue going to platform suppliers and game developers/publishers, is forecast to approach $23 billion in 2017.

People often ask me about contracts with publishers and some of the things you might find in them. While the Activision-Bungie contract is not typical for most independent game studios, it still is worth reading to get familiar with some of the terms and clauses related to the development process, milestones, and obligations of both parties. I’m not sure how the LA Times originally got this, but since it’s on the Internet, I figured I would link to it so others can learn from it. http://documents.latimes.com/bungie-activision-contract/

According to NPD, 2012 digital game sales were:

• U.S. -$5.9 billion (40 percent of total U.S. dollars spent on games, up from 28 percent in 2010)
• U.K. – $1.7 billion
• Germany – $1.4 billion
• France – $1 billion.

For 2012, the U.S. breaks down as:

• New retail games – $7.1 billion
• Used games – $1.59 billion
• Digital games and DLC -$2.22 billion
• Game subscriptions – $1.05 billion
• Social network games – $544 million
• Game rentals -$198 million
• Mobile games -$2.11 billion
• Digital full games and DLC combined grew 33.9 percent for the year
• Subscriptions grew 12.9 percent
• Mobile games grew 10.4 percent

• The UK has the highest percentage of console players
• France prefers portable consoles
• Germany prefers computers
• US is most partial to gaming on mobile and tablet platforms
• In the US, 27 percent of mobile gamers pay
• In Europe, 40 percent of mobile gamers pay
• U.K. average spending on mobile games is $16
• U.S. average spending on mobile games is $9
• In China, Mobile game spending is projected to reach$1 billion this year, and $2.8 billion in 2016.

According to SuperData:

• The European client-based MMO market totalled $1.3 billion in 2012
• Three publishers dominate the space, generating 70% of all revenue
• Germany is the largest European client-based MMO market with €474 Million in 2012 sales
• The UK  client-based MMO market was €281 Million in 2012
• France was the third largest country in terms of client-based MMO  at €222 Million

Just got a note from the DEVELOP Conference and wanted to pass along the info. Speaker submissions close this Friday, March 15th. If you are interested in speaking or submitting a talk, follow this link: http://www.developconference.com/page.cfm/Action=Form/FormID=1/t=m

The dates of the conference are July 9-11th, 2013 in sunny Brighton, England on the coast.

According to NPD, and their latest report, Core Gaming 2013, within the US population ages 9 and older, almost half play video games on core gaming device.

• Only 14 percent, or 37.5 million people, would be considered a core gamer*
• Ages 9-17 are most likely to be a core gamer (26 percent)
• Ages 18-34 are the next largest group of core gamers (21 percent)

Over the past year

• 88 percent of core gamers state they purchased new physical games
• 78 percent purchased physical used games
• 70 percent purchased digital full games

*Core Gamers were described as playing Action, Adventure, Fighting, Flight, Massively Multi-Player, Racing, Real Time Strategy, Role-Playing, Shooter, or Sport games on a PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, PC or a Mac, and spending 5 hours or more per week gaming on any of these devices.

Here’s a great presentation from Xyo app search on App discovery and App Store optimization. It has a lot of information such as the importance of the App name, icon, keywords and the optimal copy to get an App higher up in the rankings. Anyone launching a iOS, Android, or Windows Mobile app should check this out.

There are now 76 Million Xbox 360′s according to a post on AllThingsD. Other interesting data points for the platform include:

• 38 percent of Xbox users are women
• More than 51 percent of Xbox users have kids
• U.S. Xbox account holders use the devices for 87 hours per month
• As of last March, non-game usage — fitness, entertainment content from partners like HBO and Netflix, etc. — started outpacing game usage on a yearly basis
• There was a 57 percent year-over-year growth in entertainment usage
•  24 million Kinect devices have been sold, up from 20 million last year
• There are 46 million Xbox Live accounts, up from 40 million last year

IESherpa Opinion: As the 360 continues to thrive, the focus for Microsoft is clearly general consumers that are looking to watch Netflix and other on demand video apps. Games were the Trojan Horse, enabling the platform’s transition into a Web TV hub and central digital media center in the living room.