Gaming Headsets: The Category That Built Competitive Audio

Gaming headsets have quickly become one of the most recognisable accessories in modern consumer electronics. Everything from casual enjoyment through to esports, dedicated audio has become a core part of any gaming experience.

The category itself emerged alongside the rise of online multiplayer communities. For many years, enthusiasts used standard headphones as their choice of product. However, the importance of voice communication created a demand for dedicated products that combined immersive audio with integrated high-quality mics.

As always, this newsletter is designed to be a light, easy read on this week’s topic. For deeper insight into individual markets, we cover 200+ equipment markets on our market intelligence platform, dataportl.

In the early noughties through to 2010s, gaming headsets evolved from a niche to a major consumer category. Within this, dominant brands emerged. Led by Turtle Beach, SteelSeries and HyperX, they soon defined the market for the first products designed specifically for gaming, rather than adapting traditional audio products.

More immersive sound with better communication very quickly became an essential part of the gaming setup.

As gaming became increasingly more of a social aspect of people’s lives, audio moved from a secondary consideration to one of the key fundamentals of the experience.

First person shooters placed a larger importance on directional sound. The ability to locate footsteps, identify movements and communicate clearly with your team became a meaningful part of the gameplay. Headset manufacturers responded by introducing features designed for these specific use cases. Surround sound, noise-cancelling mics, custom EQ and low-latency wireless connections all became the main selling points.

The market saw strong momentum throughout the late 2010s. Growing esports participation and events fuelled this movement as we saw one of the first real-world instances where gaming became more than casual.

2020 was an interesting time for many markets. Spanning across all of the 200+ markets dataportl tracks, there is a clear and obvious change in nearly all of these markets. Naturally, gaming headsets are no different.

The combination of lockdown and remote working created a significant increase in demand for gaming headsets.

Consumers were spending a far greater time gaming, communicating online and participating in virtual activities. The result was a significant spike in shipments and revenues across the entire vertical.

This article is based on dataportl’s ongoing tracking of global device and equipment markets. dataportl provides structured visibility across 200+ markets, helping teams understand where demand is forming, how it’s changing, and which players are active in each vertical.

For teams that need to stay close to how demand is shifting across multiple markets, dataportl acts as a single reference point for ongoing analysis and planning.

With that, back to the article.

One of the biggest changes within the category was the (expected) shift from wired to wireless headsets.

Historically, wired products dominated the market. For many years, wireless technology just couldn’t compete with the innate qualities of wired headsets such as lower latency and lower cost. The responsiveness couldn’t be matched to that of the physical cable.

Unsurprisingly, this gap started to decrease. Advancements in 2.4GHz wireless, innovation in low-latency connections and improvements in battery performance made wireless headsets the viable option for an increasingly large slice of the market.

Dataportl expects the market to reach a major milestone in 2026 as wireless gaming headsets overtake wired in unit shipments.

With that being said, some hardcore competitive players continue to value wired solutions. This is particularly visible within PC gaming.

Wireless has become a default choice for many.

One of the more interesting shifts impacting the gaming headset vertical, is not actually coming from gaming brands themselves. Rather, it’s coming from the broader audio market.

TWS earbuds have improved dramatically over the last decade. Advances in microphone quality, battery life and Bluetooth LE Audio, have created products that are becoming more capable of handling gaming alongside everyday listening.

Why does this matter? It meant that for casual players, the dedicated gaming headset is no longer the only option. The convenience of carrying a ‘one size fits all device’ is becoming increasingly attractive to younger demographics.

As a result, the gaming headset market is facing growing competition from continuously improving and diversifying TWS products that were never originally intended for gaming. Ironically creating an almost ‘full-circle’ in how the market trend is presented.

Dataportl forecasts that the gaming headset market is entering a period of maturity. After years of strong growth, particularly surrounding the pandemic surge, the category is expected to see gradual contraction over the remainder of the decade.

Wired gaming headsets are expected to see the largest decline with dataportl forecasting a CAGR of -3.9% between 2025 and 2030. Wireless gaming headsets, however, are remaining more resilient. Forecasting a CAGR of -1.1% over the same period.

As the market has shifted, the Top 10 brands we see in the vertical today are Logitech, TurtleBeach, Sony, HyperX, GN (Steelseries) Razer, Microsoft, Corsair, Harman and RIG.

Much like other consumer electronics markets, the future may not belong to the specialist products alone. But rather to products that can support multiple use cases.

The next chapter may be about proving why dedicated hardware still deserves a place alongside increasingly capable everyday audio devices.