Cape Town - Revenue from digital gaming is set for massive growth, data from an industry research organisation has found.
According to Juniper Research, by the end of 2015 revenue from gaming will top $80bn, rising to $104bn by the end of 2018.
But the company data revealed that despite the declining PC market, the form factor alone accounted for 42% of game revenues this year.
Regardless of the PC contribution, consumers are shifting to mobile devices for games, estimated to reach 35% of game revenues by 2020, Juniper said in its Worldwide Digital Games Market 2015-2020 report.
Gartner data shows that PCs fell from 277 million units in 2014 to an expected 251 million units by the end of this year. Despite the increase in ultra mobiles to 89 million units by 2017, traditional PCs will continue their downward spiral to 233 million.
VR tech
Virtual reality enabled gaming machines are also expected to drive growth as companies integrate the technology with consoles.
“As digital purchases gain favour with consumers, we will see a drive in sales during the lifecycle of the current generation of consoles. Newly emerging technologies such as Virtual Reality will aid in consumer adoption, as the console continues to evolve to become the core home entertainment centre,” said report author Lauren Foye.
Juniper showed that the “freemium” model of games is set to drive industry growth.
“The mobile games industry has seen impressive uplift over the past few years, largely due to the popularity of ‘freemium games’, whereby users make in-app purchases in games such as Clash of Clans, Candy Crush and Game of War. Juniper has forecasts that this trend will continue, with mobile and tablet revenues approaching almost 35% of total game revenues by 2020,” the company said.
Sony is reported to have sold in excess of 22 million PlayStation 4 gaming consoles while rival Microsoft said that its Xbox increase sales by 26% in August.
Juniper said that console software sales were set to jump from $21bn in 2015 to $27bn by 2020.
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