Gaming to make record-breaking $197 billion in 2025, PC revenue almost ties console

The worldwide video games industry is expected to make $197 billion in 2025, a new all-time high that's driven in part by recent software and hardware price increases.

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The global video games market will generate $197 billion throughout this year, analyst firm Newzoo predicts. 2025's revenue figures represent a significant 7.5% year-over-year increase, which can be attributed to a number of factors, including higher prices, wider content availability, and other things like accounting and revenue recognition practices.

The platform breakdown also underlines why Microsoft is pushing so hard into the PC space. According to Newzoo's estimates, mobile will lead the charge this year with a megaton $108 billion in revenue, representing more than half of the total--55%. What's interesting is just how close PC and console are to each other; console is to make $45 billion revenue, up 4.2% and representing 23%, where PC is close behind with $43 billion, making up 22% of the total.

• Read more: Gaming to earn $187.7 billion in 2024, up 2% over last year
• Read more: Microsoft raises prices of Xbox consoles, accessories, games: Series X 2TB $729, games now $80

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PC is a new frontier for console-makers, and both Sony and Microsoft have been releasing their games on Steam for years now. Microsoft, however, is ready to push things further; reports indicate that the next Xbox console will actually be a PC running Windows 11 that emulates a console-like experience.

As far as the big earnings jump in 2025, it's important to remember that practically everything in the interactive entertainment space now costs more for consumers to purchase. This upfront price increase also soaks into catalog and games that are older than a year, as these titles can still be sold for the now-inflated $70 MSRP for new games.

Nintendo also released its popular Switch 2 platform in June, facilitating a new entrypoint for software sales, subscriptions, and continued hardware/accessory spending. Nintendo also introduced the first mainline $80 AAA game with Mario Kart World, and this high price tag didn't deter sales adoption.

Microsoft raised the prices of its Xbox consoles not once, but twice, throughout 2025. They also raised the price of Xbox Game Pass Ultimate with a hefty jump from $20 a month to $30.