The global gaming market will be bigger than ever in 2023. This is evident from figures from Newzoo, which compared the results of several game publishers.
When it is said that the gaming market will be bigger than ever by 2023, the research agency is referring to a value of $ 184 billion. This means that the entire sector has increased in value by 0.6% compared to last year. This increase in value is expected to continue next year: Newzoo sees the sector becoming worth as much as $205.7 billion by 2026.
Steady growth
In other words, the gaming market would continue to grow steadily between now and 2026. That growth would take place on several fronts: on consoles, PCs and mobile devices. Currently, mobile games are the largest of all, with approximately 49% of the gaming market value coming from the Google Play Store and Apple App Store. Consoles, such as Microsoft’s Xbox Series S and X and Sony’s PlayStation 5, account for about 29% of the value. It is striking that the mobile gaming market decreased by 1.6% in value compared to last year. Consoles are doing better: growth there is 1.9%.
© Newzoo
The PC gaming market accounts for approximately 21% of the value – games that you can play from your browser account for an additional percentage of market share. Despite reports that PC sales fell last year, the PC gaming market has grown 5.2% from 2022. One possible explanation for this is the introduction of handheld gaming PCs, such as the Steam Deck and Asus ROG Ally.
Biggest publishers
Newzoo also looked closely at game publishers’ figures. It shows that the ten largest gaming companies accounted for $54 billion in the first half of the year. The majority of this comes from the Chinese Tencent, which publishes games such as EA FC Mobile, PUBG Mobile League of Legends mobile. Tencent towers over Japan’s Sony, which emerges as the second largest publisher. There is a caveat to this: if the results of Microsoft (position 4) and Activision (position 7) are combined, it is larger than Sony. In other words: the acquisition of Activision Blizzard by Microsoft is a major reshaping of the gaming landscape.
© Newzoo
Nintendo, which is one of the big names for many gamers, is at the back of the list. In the first half of 2023, the Japanese publisher of Mario and Zelda only managed to grow by 1.4%. With successes such as The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom and The Super Mario Bros. Movie that seems strange. However, if we look at the beginning of 2022, we see that an exceptional number of successful games for the Switch were launched there. With titles such as Pokémon Legends and Nintendo Switch Sports, the games manufacturer already collected so much in H1 2022 that real growth became difficult.
