Cloud gaming promises to become a rapidly growing direction in the development of the gaming industry in the next few years. As follows from the latest forecast made by the analytical company IHS Markit, by 2023 the total spending of users in this market will grow to $2,5 billion. And this corresponds to more than six times the growth in turnover of cloud game streaming providers over the next five years.
These numbers do a good job of explaining the surge in interest in cloud gaming from major tech companies that we've seen throughout the year. So, earlier this year, Google announced plans to launch its gaming streaming platform soon. , and Sony and Microsoft announced a surprise in the field of building cloud services for games and entertainment. In addition, do not forget about the ongoing work at Microsoft on the project , which will allow you to stream Xbox games to mobile devices and PC.
The IHS Markit report categorizes cloud gaming services into two main types: services that provide access to game content through a subscription, and services that allow the user to rent capacity to run games from their library. Analysts believe that most large companies with their own cloud infrastructure will enter the game content streaming market one way or another in the coming years. This explains the expected sharp growth in this area.
However, it should be understood that the emergence of new cloud services for players will not cause significant changes in the structure of the gaming platforms used. Analysts' predicted revenue growth of up to $2,5 billion by 2023 only means that in five years, cloud gaming will account for about 2% of the gaming market. And while there are predictions that tens of millions of gamers on the use of streaming services and cloud set-top boxes connected to TVs, traditional gaming platforms will definitely not lose their relevance.
If we talk about the current state of the market, then at the moment there are 16 gaming streaming services in the world with a significant audience, the fees of which in 2018 amounted to $387 million. The most popular among the services is Sony PlayStation Now, which accounted for 36% at the end of last year. . In second place in terms of revenue is Nintendo's cloud service, developed jointly with Taiwanese company Ubitus, which allows streaming popular AAA games to Nintendo Switch consoles for a small fee.
The most common cloud game streaming services are in Japan - this country accounts for up to 46% of the market turnover, which is largely due to the Internet infrastructure developed in the Land of the Rising Sun and low network delays due to the geographical compactness of the region. Also among the countries with high popularity of cloud gaming (primarily due to PlayStation Now), the United States and France are noted, occupying second and third places, respectively.
Source: 3dnews.ru