Your love for games is going to push the industry to new highs over the next few years.
The market for games on consoles, PC, and mobile will reach $100 billion by 2019, according to research from DFC Intelligence. That number includes software across all of those platforms, but it does not factor in spending on hardware. But much of that revenue is expected to come from core gamers on consoles, as DFC predicts consumers will buy more than 200 million PlayStation 4s, Xbox Ones, and Wii U systems combined. PS4 will lead the competition while Wii U will obviously land in last place.
[aditude-amp id="flyingcarpet" targeting='{"env":"staging","page_type":"article","post_id":1719339,"post_type":"story","post_chan":"none","tags":null,"ai":false,"category":"none","all_categories":"games,","session":"C"}']“The number of gamers willing to line up at day one and pay top dollar to get the latest hit continues to grow substantially,” DFC analyst David Cole said about the report. “These are the gamers driving industry growth.”
But the success of this generation, along with smartphones, tablets, and PC platforms like Steam, will lead to a major shift in the way most people purchase games. DFC predicts that digital downloads and client-based always-online releases will make up 85 percent of revenue by 2019.
DFC also predicts that free-to-play games will continue to grow and find a greater foothold in traditional market sectors — even though the intelligence firm notes that core gamers will still likely prefer paying money for full games.
“Unfortunately, in the mobile game space, consumers have balked at paying any money upfront,” said Cole. “Most games were never designed for a freemium model and therefore never have a chance. The good news is that triple-A console and PC games can still command a premium price at launch with the [capability] to add additional digital content as a secondary source of revenue.”
DFC Intelligence has a plethora of reports that detail these trends and predictions, and the company is selling them now on its website. These include insights on the worldwide game market over the new few years, the fate of consoles, free-to-play client-based PC games, and the overall PC game market.