Blizzard: PC decline talk is "dead wrong"

In an interview with Eurogamer published today, Blizzard co-founder and chief executive Mike Morhaime said that suggestions the PC games market is in decline are "just completely dead wrong".

"PC is the gaming platform with the largest installed base around the world. It's also the platform with the best margins," he added.

Morhaime echoed the sentiments of Valve head Gabe Newell, expressed in his recent defence of PC gaming: that talk of a decline in PC gaming was based on analysis of flat retail sales, and did nothing to include the booming revenues from subscriptions, microtransactions, advertising and digital downloads.

"I agree with a lot of Gabe's comments," Morhaime said. "I think that it is just completely dead wrong to think about the PC gaming market and conclude that it's a declining market. It is far from declining.

"If you look at the numbers, there are probably more people playing games on the PC than any other platform. More than there ever have been before. If you look at the revenue, it's also growing. It's only not growing if all you're looking at is PC retail, and even then, I think it's just flat, I don't think it's declining very much," he said.

Although Diablo III will continue Blizzard's exclusive focus on PC and Mac, with no console version planned, Morhaime remained open to the idea that Blizzard would one day return to console development.

"When Blizzard goes to make a game we look at what is the appropriate platform for each of our games. Our primary focus is on the PC, but I wouldn't rule out us continuing to look at console in the future if it was appropriate for the game," he said.

Check out the full interview for more comments from the head of the world's most successful game studio, and stay tuned for our definitive Diablo III preview later in the week.