It appears as though the days of exclusivity and console wars are well and truly over, as Microsoft continues to detail its multi-platform approach. The latest chapter of this story comes from the CEO of Microsoft, Satya Nadella, who recently declared that “the biggest gaming business is the Windows business.”
Prioritisation of PC gaming is a shift in Xbox’s strategy that seems to support rumours that the next console from the company would be following in the footsteps of the ROG Xbox Ally X, being closer to a gaming PC than a dedicated console.
It’s worth examining whether Windows is indeed the most popular console both as it stands now, and how it could change if Xbox were to move its attention wholly into the PC gaming business.
Particularly when it comes to traditional Xbox flagships such as Halo which will now be on PlayStation for the very first time, it appears console exclusives are dwindling. However, that might not mean that every game is necessarily going to be available on PC.
Nintendo has always had its own games and audience, and that is unlikely to change, with the Switch 2 basking in the success of new releases such as Mario Kart World and Donkey Kong Bananza.
Additionally, even if Xbox consoles no longer exists as a competitor, would Sony treat its own exclusives any differently? Even as it stands, while many have pointed out that a next-gen Xbox/PC hybrid would make previously PlayStation-only games like God of War and Ghost of Tsushima playable on an Xbox for the first time, these didn’t come to PC immediately. In fact, it could be that while Xbox games go multiplatform, PlayStation adopts a more timed-exclusive approach to try and get the best of both worlds – drawing players to their platform but eventually seeing wider sales.
As speculation heats up around what the next generation of Xbox hardware could look like, the same is true of the rumoured PlayStation 6, and they speak to two very different approaches.
What is the Most Popular Console?
There’s also an elephant in the room throughout this entire discussion; the oft-forgotten gaming juggernaut that is the mobile platform.
In popular gaming discourse, it’s easy to overlook mobile gaming due to the relative absence of much-anticipated landmark gaming titles for smartphones. Whenever gaming showcases like SGF or the Game Awards roll around, everyone is curious to see what big companies like FromSoftware or Obsidian are going to reveal for consoles, rather than any focus at all on mobile – and that can distract from the vast amount of revenue that the platform generates.
Research has shown that in 2024, nearly half of total gaming revenue came from mobile (49%, $92.6 billion), with the other half being split between console and PC. That puts mobile firmly ahead in that category, and when it comes to players, it was estimated in that year that of nearly 3.5 billion gamers worldwide, 2.85 billion of them are mobile gamers (around 83%).
Of course, this doesn’t mean that all mobile gamers are exclusively mobile gamers, but it does illustrate just how popular of a platform that it is.
The number of PC gamers, on the other hand, has been estimated to be around 1.85 billion.
Is PC More Popular Than Console?
That same research splits the remaining 51% of revenue between consoles and PC, with the former seeing 28% ($51.9 billion) and the latter 23% ($43.2 billion). In terms of players, information on how many players each console has is difficult to come by – and it’s worth remembering that both the revenue and the player numbers will be split three ways across PlayStation, Xbox and Nintendo consoles.
This means that while it might appear as though PC is at the bottom of the list in these categories, it’s still likely more popular in many regards than any of the individual consoles.
Additionally, if Xbox is looking to lean into the PC audience, it’s worth remembering what else Microsoft might do to further its commitment to Game Pass. With the current gaming landscape becoming increasingly expensive, research has already shown that gamers are spending less on new games, and so turning a widely-used platform like the merged PC/Xbox landscape into an easier place to subscribe to game library services could also impact its popularity.
