Yet another year in a row, revenues in the games industry have increased from $137.9 billion in 2018 to $152.1 billion in 2019, according to Newzoo. And this is not going to stop.
Source: Newzoo
In the Newzoo 2019 games industry report, we can find some of the same hot topics from last year such as mobile and tablet games representing the biggest gaming segment or the Asia-Pacific region leading the global market.
However, the disruptor for this and upcoming years is without a doubt cloud gaming. The materialization of cloud gaming will shape the future of the games industry. But what is it exactly?
Cloud gaming is a service that allows players to play games on any device without requiring any specific hardware or a local copy of the game.
Cloud gaming or games on-demand services follow a similar approach as it can be found in the music or media industry, with services such as Spotify or Netflix. However, games are much more complex than music or audiovisual content and require more powerful technology. Do not mix up games on-demand with games subscription services such as Xbox Game Pass, Uplay+ or EA access, though. The latter is a way to pay to access a selection of games, but you still need to have the hardware and the physical storage space to download the game, so totally different models.
The key factor for cloud gaming to work is a powerful network. And that will only be possible with 5G.
5G technology will provide the perfect setup for cloud gaming thanks to the higher speed and low latency. 5G and cloud gaming will go hand in hand and will probably be a reality in less than a decade, so cloud gaming is not going to be immediately adopted. Some companies are already starting to work in the future of gaming. For example, Google Stadia or Project XCloud by Microsoft. Actually, Google Stadia will be already available on 19th November (the hype!).
Google Stadia Controller
Cloud gaming will probably attract more casual gamers who are not willing to spend a lot of money on hardware and retail games, and heavily increase the number of users
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