The vast majority of enthusiast PC gamers prefer to play games on desktop systems rather than notebooks, according to a study from Jon Peddie Research (JPR), the technically oriented marketing, research, and management consulting firm based in Tiburon, California. Per JPR’s GPU production and sales data, as well as Steam Hardware Survey data, upwards of 87% of enthusiast PC gamers use desktops to play games, it’s claimed. The study was apparently prompted by “misleading” market research and sales data that JPR believes could lead hardware manufacturers to over-invest in notebook R&D and marketing.
From a JPR blog post:
Sales of gaming-branded or gaming-styled computers to enthusiast gamers might appear to be higher in the notebook category based on some market research and sales data, but it’s very likely that the vast majority of these computers are not being used to play games.
JPR’s recent analysis of the GPU data of the Steam survey broke the GPUs into three categories: Desktop, Notebook, and Either, with the Either category being GPUs that have the possibility of being used in either notebook or desktop configurations, while an additional 2% were “Unknown.”
The data indicates that 68% of Steam Hardware Survey gamers are using desktop GPUs, 10% are using notebook GPUs, and 20% are using GPUs that could be used in either configuration.
We applied the ratio of desktop to notebook GPUs to subdivide the Either and Unknown data, and this methodology suggests that 87% of enthusiast PC gamers are playing on desktop configurations, while only 13% are playing with notebook configurations. This is not surprising to us, as PC gamers are very tech savvy and know that the highest performance, the highest customization ability, the highest upgradability, and the best value for the money over time is found with desktop PCs.