Global revenues from PC and console games will decline from $46.5 billion this year to $41 billion by 2019.
This is according to a new report by Juniper Research titled PC & Console Games: Trends, Opportunities, and Vendor Strategies 2014-2019.
A recent IDC report also revealed that worldwide PC shipments are expected to fall 6.0% in 2014, a slight adjustment from the previous forecast of a 6.1% decline.
Gartner, a rival market research company, said in a news release that PC shipments in the March quarter fell 1.7%. IDC and Gartner both said shipments in the first quarter took a knock as companies replaced their older PCs ahead of the end of the Windows XP operating system.
In its report, Juniper Research also reveals that despite the decreasing sales of console hardware and increasing significance of mobile platforms, PC and console games will still account for over 50% of industry revenues over the next five years.
Nonetheless, the market research firm points out that global revenues from software sales on both the PC and console platforms will remain relatively healthy, with PC games software sales exceeding sales on the console platform.
The report found that the new generation of consoles will generate a short-term uplift in software sales, which is then expected to slow down as the life cycle of the hardware progresses. Juniper also believes that a ninth generation of consoles is likely to arrive around 2019, assuming a similar console life cycle to previous iterations, which is also likely to provoke a longer-term software spike.
According to Juniper, the report highlights that the cloud games market will reach $1 billion in revenues - a growth of almost 30% on the 2014 figure of $281 million. The increase is a result of the launch of services such as the PlayStation Now, and rising interest from operators to augment ARPU by adding cloud games alongside traditional services.
The firm also notes that multiplayer online battle arena games, such as League of Legends and Dota2, will continue to be among the most popular genres on the PC platform.
Handheld devices will continue to struggle in attracting gamers, and revenues from this platform will shrink to under 2% of the total games industry sales by 2018, it notes, adding that the increasing availability of online video game streaming platforms, such as Twitch, supports the surge in popularity of eSports or professional gaming.
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