Summary

Cloud gaming will fundamentally change the video games industry over the next 10 years, just as video and audio streaming has reshaped the music, film, and TV industries. The market is at a very early stage, but competition is intensifying, drawing in tech giants (including Sony, Google, Tencent, Microsoft, Nvidia, Facebook, and Amazon) and telcos (like Deutsche Telekom, Verizon, AT&T, Vodafone, KT, and China Mobile). Game publishers like Ubisoft and Electronic Arts have formed partnerships with service providers to increase their prominence in this developing market.

Tech giants like Google, Microsoft, Sony, and Nvidia are banking on subscription models to help them become the “Netflix of gaming”. Exclusive content will be critical to attracting customers. Thanks to their massive libraries of exclusive games, Microsoft, Sony, and Tencent are potential winners in the subscription model. Providers of subscription-based cloud gaming services that lack exclusive games will struggle to compete.

Scope

- This report provides an overview of the cloud gaming theme.
- It identifies the key trends impacting growth of the theme over the next 12 to 24 months, split into three categories: technology trends, macroeconomic trends, and regulatory trends.
- It includes a comprehensive industry analysis, including forecasts for cloud gaming revenues to 2030.
- The detailed value chain comprises four layers: a content layer, a service layer, a connectivity layer, and a device layer.

Reasons to Buy

- Worth $1bn in 2020, the global cloud gaming market will grow to become a $30bn industry by 2030, at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 40% over this 10-year period, according to GlobalData estimates.
- By revenue, cloud gaming accounted for less than 1% of the video games industry in 2020, but it has the potential to disrupt how games are distributed, consumed, and monetized. In 10 years, traditional PC and console games will have been replaced by games hosted in the cloud and accessed via thin-client PCs, consoles, or mobiles.