The PC games market has now surpassed the console gaming sector in terms of revenues, an analyst has claimed.

DFC Intelligence owner David Cole told PCR: "On a global basis PC games have surpassed console games but the new console systems means consoles should show an increase.

"Among core gamers there is a heavy overlap with most console gamers also playing on a PC. The big difference is that consoles are now the luxury item and PCs are the necessity. Just a few years ago the reverse was true. This means PCs have the broader audience."

DFC previously predicted that PC gaming would eclipse console gaming by 2015, and earlier this year it said that the PC gaming market would exceed $25 billion in 2014.

The news comes after DFC published its latest quarterly paid-for report on PC gaming revenues and usage.

In terms of the most popular PC games, DFC says that MOBA (multiplayer online battle arena) titles and free-to-play games are continuing to perform strongly.

"The MOBA games League of Legends and Dota 2 dominate everything else by an order of magnitude in terms of more usage than other products," added Cole. "In the first part of 2014 we saw some signs that may change with the introduction of new titles and some increased play of games outside the MOBA category.

"But MOBA is dominant. Beyond that it is a nice mix of MMO, strategy and first person shooter.

"We can say that our top 20 list for 2013 had no titles released that year and in Q1 2014 we saw three new titles crack the list: DayZ, Rust and Hearthstone.

"PC player hours have also been remarkably consistent. We had expected hours to fall in 2013 because there were not any major new releases. However, hours were actually flat with 2012 which bodes very well for the market going forward as more triple-A titles are released."

Cole said that Europe has been a big driver of PC trends in recent years especially around free-to-play games, and that the big trend emerging from the US is likely to be more triple-A titles released for console and PC.

He also anticipates an increasing crossover between different platforms.

"There is a blurring of platforms where it starts to get hard to define what is a PC and what is a mobile device," Cole explained.

"Hearthstone was a great example of this as it released for both PC and iPad. Not all games fit that model but as we mentioned core gamers now tend to play on multiple devices."