The survey in question pertained to what your attitude toward game exclusives and multi-platform releases is in general.

Do gamers mind the wait for the title of your choice to release on your favorite platform or do they prefer to grab it on the one it comes out on first? Let’s analyze what we’ve found out, based on your responses.

Who’s our respondent?

Before we dive into the nitty gritty of the survey, it’d be good to give you an image of who the respondents are in general.

We’ve collected a total of 1,079 responses, with 521 (48.3%) of them complete and the remainder – 558 – partial.

A majority (53.8%) of the respondents are aged 18-24. The second biggest group are users aged 25-34 (17.8%), while the third are folks aged 45+ (11.9%). Interestingly enough, both under 18 and 35-44 groups are of the same size: 87, that is 8.3% of the general respondent count.

We didn’t ask what their gender was, so this statistic is not included.

As far as our respondents’ weapons of choice – or at least the platform they play the most frequently on – are concerned, the most popular platform is PC (a whopping 85.1%). PlayStation consoles (either PS4 or PS5) came second, with a result of 17.3%. Xbox (One, Series X/S) seems pretty unpopular, as its result is just a mere 8.9%. 6.6% selected Nintendo Switch. 6% of the respondents chose other platforms. Here we have some really interesting responses: a microwave and a digital vape…

85% of our respondents chose PC as their weapon of choice, while only circa 17% of users prefer PlayStation 4 or 5.
9.1% respondents said they don’t play video games.

And as far those who do are concerned, most people (30.6%) play between 5 to 10 hours per week. 23.3% play less than 5 hours per week, while 20.5% play 11-20 hours per week. A pretty sizeable percent (15.3%) of our respondents play over 30 hours a week, while the weekly playtime of 10.4% is 21-30 hours per week.

And now for the results

Now that we know who our respondents were, let’s dive into clou of the survey.

First question: have you ever purchased the same game on a console and later on PC? 59.96% said no, but then there’s the sizeable force of 40.4% who said they have. In general it seems that when you buy games, it’s for one platform only, though a lot of people still buy both console and PC versions.

Why is that? We also asked you for the reasons behind it and it turned out there are numerous reasons behind that. The most common one was better graphics and/or performance on PC (56.5%), followed by mod support (29.2%) and a lower price on PC as well (27.3%).

Other notable reasons included:

  • PC-exclusive DLCs and add-ons (13.5%)
  • Wanting to play multiplayer with PC-based friends if a game doesn’t allow for cross-play (21.9%)
  • Mouse and keyboard support (25%)
It seems that graphics and/or performance are more important to gamers than mod support or the price of the game

Next was a multiple-answer question regarding the factors which were most important when buying the same game on a different platform. Price was the most important one (as stated by 57.7% respondents), followed by graphics quality (43.1%), mod support (27.7%), and player community on the target platform (16.2%). Other reasons included additional content available on that platform and the possibility to transfer saves between the platforms.

Games people buy on both consoles and PCs

For this question we selected a couple major hits. Here’s the breakdown:

  • GTA V (55.7%)
  • Call of Duty series (27.3%)
  • God of War (15.8%)
  • Ghost of Tsushima (8.3%)
  • Mortal Kombat 1, Helldivers II, Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection (7.1% each)

32% of respondents chose the Other option where they could give their own examples. These include the likes of Cyberpunk 2077, Minecraft, Doom, Diablo IV, The Last of Us, Rainbow Six: Siege, Horizon: Zero Dawn, and more.

It seems that those who own both PC and a console, are a little more willing to wait for their favorite title until it’s available on PC.

Now, do people hold off buying games on consoles knowing that these titles will later come out on PC? While the general trend here is yes, those who do that often constitute 24.9%, while those who do that sometimes constitute 32.8%. Those who never hold off buying such games are the remaining 42.4%, which is quite a lot.

Platform preferences when it comes to genres

Here’s an interesting question. Which platforms do people prefer for certain genres? The breakdown is as follows:

First-person shooters: a whopping 76.8% have chosen PC, whereas only 11.9% prefer them on consoles. 11.3% have no preference here.

Role-playing games: again, a whopping 74.6% prefer playing them on PC, while a mere 12.1% prefer them on consoles. 13.4% have no preference.

Sports games: again, PC has the advantage here, but only 45% have selected it as their preferred platform. 34.1% prefer them on consoles, while 20.9% have no preference.

Gamers generally prefer to play games on PC, although in a few genres the difference is not that significant

Racing games: 50.2% respondents prefer them on PC, while 31.8% prefer them on consoles. 18% have no preference.

Strategy games: no surprise here – a whopping 76.2% prefer them on PC, while just a mere 9.7% prefer them on consoles (not that they have much of a selection, as a majority of these games are available on personal computers only). 14.2% have no preference.

As we can see here, most respondents prefer playing games on PC as opposed to consoles, though sports and racing games are seen by many as better on consoles.

Final remarks

When it comes to how much console exclusivity before the PC release matters to our respondents on a scale from 1 to 5, it’s super important for 32.8% users, while it’s not important for 16.3%.

Additionally, 41.3% of respondents say that they don’t use subscription services (Xbox Game Pass, PlayStation Plus, etc.). 30.1% use them only occasionally, while 28.6% use them regularly.

All these statistics are certainly an interesting thing to delve into. It seems that these days console exclusivity is becoming less and less important. While lots of games get released on PC either many years after their original console release or never end up on personal computers (and vice versa), most games usually enjoy a multi-platform release. PC-based players prefer these versions for their better performance and/or visuals, mod support, if applicable, and mouse and keyboard support, which is far more convenient in many genres, such as first-person shooters.

Interestingly enough, all major genres have been chosen by our respondents as better on PC than on consoles, which is certainly a curious takeaway from our survey. This has certainly been an fascinating insight into the topic of multi-platform releases and gamers’ attitude towards either PC or console exclusives. It’s a topic which definitely warrants more exploring. Until next time!