<\/p>\n
The 2026 PC and Console Gaming Report from leading video game analytics firm Newzoo is stuffed full of dozens of interesting tidbits, covering everything from the ongoing dip in subscription-based MMORPG revenue to the top 20 highest-playtime games on Xbox and PlayStation. However, the stat that\u2019s catching everyone\u2019s attention is the ongoing rise of \u201csub-$30\u201d purchases on PC, which has risen by a whopping 156 percent from 2022 to 2025.<\/span><\/p>\n Newzoo\u2019s annual <\/span>PC & Gaming Report for 2026<\/span> dropped on March 12, and the biggest revelation, as spotted by <\/span>GamesIndustry.biz<\/span>, is that \u201cSteam-led PC growth\u201d will lead to PC games sales overtaking consoles\u2019 total game sales revenue by 2028. To clarify, that\u2019s not some kind of medium statistic\u2013 Newzoo projects that PC game sales will overtake the <\/span>combined <\/span>game sales of the Nintendo Switch 2, the PlayStation 5, and the Xbox Series S\/X by 2028.<\/span><\/p>\n Of course, that\u2019s only including game purchases. As the report makes a point of noting, Nintendo, Microsoft, and Sony are still making a bunch of money from subscription-based services like PlayStation Plus and Xbox Games Pass, which, of course, Steam doesn\u2019t offer. However, it\u2019s still a mindboggling statistic even with this stipulation in mind, so what exactly is the cause of the PC market\u2019s growth in video game sales? Cheap games, apparently.<\/span><\/p>\n By \u201ccheaper,\u201d Newzoo isn\u2019t referring to games that are on sale; the report specifically notes that games that retail at a full price below \u201csub-$30\u201d are to blame for this upward trend. In fact, in 2025 alone, <\/span>Schedule I<\/span>, <\/span>PEAK<\/span>, <\/span>R.E.P.O<\/span>. made up for a combined 3.2 percent of PC\u2019s top sub-$30 games.<\/span><\/p>\n New sub-$30 releases also accounted for roughly 9 percent of PC\u2019s total revenue in 2025. Plus, sub-$30 games accounted for 32 percent of PC\u2019s revenue distribution by launch MSRP. For comparison, sub-$30 games only accounted for 7 percent of PlayStation\u2019s revenue distribution by launch MSRP and only 9 percent for Xbox.<\/span><\/p>\n According to Newzoo director of consulting Ben Porter, who spoke to GamesIndustry.biz at GDC, this is due in part to the \u201ccycles\u201d of console generations. \u201cIt doesn\u2019t grow in the same way as console, because consoles have these cycles: You have a console generation, and you\u2019ll see upgrades, and then you\u2019ll see changes in people\u2019s spending behaviors around this.\u201d Personally, I\u2019m looking forward to seeing how much of the sub-$30 stat <\/span>Slay the Spire 2<\/span> makes up for in Newzoo\u2019s 2027 report.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The 2026 PC and Console Gaming Report from leading video game analytics firm Newzoo is stuffed full of dozens of interesting tidbits, covering everything from the ongoing dip in subscription-based MMORPG revenue to the top 20 highest-playtime games on Xbox and PlayStation. However, the stat that\u2019s catching everyone\u2019s attention is the ongoing rise of \u201csub-$30\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5664,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[4052,5607,77,10,4228,343],"class_list":{"0":"post-5663","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-releases","8":"tag-cheaper","9":"tag-dominating","10":"tag-games","11":"tag-reviews","12":"tag-sales","13":"tag-steam"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/beteja.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5663","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/beteja.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/beteja.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beteja.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beteja.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5663"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/beteja.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5663\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beteja.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5664"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/beteja.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5663"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beteja.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5663"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beteja.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5663"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}