Sales of gaming equipment hardware and accessories skyrocketed in 2020 when everyone was stuck at home, but those sales continued to rise through 2021, too. In this episode of "The Gaming Show" on Motley Fool Live, recorded on Jan. 31, Motley Fool analysts Jon Quast and Clay Bruning talk with Fool.com contributor Jose Najarro about what they think is driving the trend in gaming hardware.
Jon Quast: The latest NPD data is out for PC gaming. Now, hardware and accessories, this is NPD data for spending on those two, for PC gaming, $5.74 billion in 2021. That is up 25 percent year over year and 2020 spending was up 62 percent from 2019. In two years, we have seen spending for PC gaming hardware and accessories more than double. I really thought that the PC gaming trend maybe was just a little bit of a one-year wonder in 2020, but it's looking like maybe this has got some legs to it. Are either of you PC gamers?
Clay Bruning: I'm not, but I definitely have a couple of friends that are, based on those gamer profiles compared to myself, that it will be on console. I think the PC gamer's more committed, whether it'd be to actually playing the game or buying the premier hardware and things like that, so not a shocking development, in my opinion. But crazy growth, all things considered regardless.
Jose Najarro: I think another core trend is just the overall movement of content creators, everybody wants to be a YouTuber or streamer. I feel like every month, you have someone else trying that, and they believe that the best way to get there is to make sure you have the best hardware. I do believe that's also helping push these hardware sales. Then I personally, when I used to work in my old job, some other software engineers, they preferred to use even though they weren't gaming, they were just coding, they preferred to use some of the keyboards that come in the gaming industry because they either had some macros that they can use to make their coding easier, or they just feel better or they enjoyed the touch of it. It's crazy how this gaming market has now expanded into the content creation as well and maybe some other users outside of just gaming.
Quast: That's a really interesting perspective there, Jose, and I hadn't considered how the growth of video games livestreaming, we've already noted before on the show that's a big trend worth watching, and so how that can definitely drive PC hardware sales. That makes a lot of sense and I appreciate you bringing that up.
