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PC Gaming Hardware Market Strong A report by Jon Peddie Research (JPR) finds that the PC gaming hardware market will reach $27 billion in 2014—showing that the segment, while not recession-proof, is very healthy. The report covers the second half of 2011 and forecasts to 2014. This year, more than 250 million game-capable home and personal-use PCs will ship. To get a sense of perspective, only 220 million PlayStation 3, Wii, and Xbox 360 consoles have shipped since the era of the modern console began in 2005. The report finds that PC gaming hard- ware will grow at a rate of 11% through 2014. However, the ongoing economic recession is having its effect on even the gaming market. Taking that reality into consideration, JPR has reduced its 2011 global PC gaming hardware market esti- mate to $19 billion, from $22 billion. Nevertheless PC gaming activity (as opposed to sales) has increased in 2011 as evidenced by ongoing game sales and online activity. JPR has raised esti- mates of the number of people playing PC games from their previous forecast by 3% for 2011. With a base of about a half-billion people who regularly engage in PC gaming, gaming is an attractive market for hardware manufacturers, many of whom consider gamers in their product design and marketing. The report gives the market values for gaming PCs and associated accessories in 31 countries and 10 regions. Ted Pollak, senior gaming analyst, also notes an interesting phenomenon due to the rise of tablets and smartphones. "We are starting to see mobile comput- ers dig into the sales of low-end PCs a bit. Consequently, this has actually increased the average gaming purchase motivation for mainstream desktops and notebooks because some people with very low computing requirements have been taken out of the denominator, and the potential customer base for desktops and laptops is more concentrated due to their superior performance in graphically intense applications," he says. "Conse- quently, we will eventually start track- ing certain mobile products as PCs in coming estimates." Jon Peddie, president of JPR, also notes a new trend in the high-end enthusiast market. "There is a growing trend for what we call 'chaperoned DIY (do-it yourself)' in Asian markets. Essentially, these PC stores guide a customer through their choice of cases, processors, and other parts, and provide an on-site DIY assem- bly area or paid system integration," he explains. "We have had a little of this in the West for some time, but not with such efficiency where the customer can walk out the same day with their new rig." The PC market overall has slowed in 2011, but the gaming segment has stayed strong in all regions, not just developing countries. It is possible, says Peddie, that the recession has forced people to stay home more, and they are turning to other forms of entertainment. "The PC Gaming Hardware Market Study" is available now in electronic editions, and can be purchased for $5000 per segment. Full subscribers to "JPR Tech Watch" (the company's bi-weekly report) get a discount as part of their subscription. Golaem Ships Crowd 1.3 G olaem has rolled out Version 1.3 of its Golaem Crowd simulation soft- ware for Autodesk Maya. Based on a unique Behavior concept, Golaem Crowd enables artists to easily set up a scene without any programming just by creating a small number of behaviors and configur- ing when they start and stop. Available behaviors include playing and blend- ing/mixing motions, reach- ing a target in the scene, avoiding one another, and so forth. The new version comes with two new behaviors: IK Behavior, which adds a kinematic constraint on a body chain (arms, legs) in order to adapt a motion to a given situation (point at target or touch a target); and Look At Behavior, which drives the eyes, head, and upper body to the desired direction. Golaem Crowd 1.3 costs $4799 per floating node. Chaos Phoenix FD Gets Update Chaos Group has released Ver- sion 2.0 of its grid-based Phoenix FD simulator for fluids, fire, smoke, explosions, and more. With a new core, the software can generate particles for foam and splash sims. It also comes with a new particle shader, giving users full control when creating foam and splashes. The enhanced GPU preview sup- ports diffuse color shading and lighting directly in the viewport, while GPU-based renderings can be saved automatically as PNG files, allowing the user to preview simulations without the need to re-render on the CPU. 6 February/March 2012