Video Game Industry

Industry Network & Industry Manufacturers

The video games industry develops, publishes, manufactures, distributes, and sells electronic gaming devices, software, and accessories. The global marketplace, which is mainly composed by video game console hardware and software, online, mobile and PC games, has recently reached $93 billion in 2013, a 14 billion increase from 2012. (Blau) Strongly driven by strong sales in the constantly evolving video game consoles and mobile gaming softwares, the market is forecast to reach $111 billion by 2015.

The industry can be segmented into two main sectors. Firstly the software sector, which constitutes the games themselves; and secondly the infrastructure and technology sector, which consists of the research and development necessary to manufacture the hardware with the latest techonolical enhancements available to play the games. Typically, new hardware sales drive demand for new software sales. The different consoles target different market segments. Microsoft and Sony's flagship gaming consoles have strongly held the top two spots in the market for the last decade. By implementing the newest processing and graphical technologies that appeal to the true gamers, both the Xbox One and the Playstation 4 are the competitors to beat. On the other hand, Nintendo's Wii U, which from a technolological standpoint is less advanced, has appealed to an entirely new customer segment, the younger and casual gamers.

Some of the most significant growths in the video game industry also derive from revenue obtained in the most recently emerging markets. Nowadays, revenues from the mobile app gaming market comes majorily from the U.S. and Europe, where smartphone and tablet gaming development is predominant. Online and PC games remain extremely popular, however, this segment is highly limited in overall size. According to market analysts the traditional PCs will not be replaced by newer PCs in...