What you need to know
After booming in 2014 as a result of sustained hardware sales, the video game and console market is expected to continue to experience strong growth in 2015 and beyond thanks to the recent and upcoming launch of leading AAA titles in the run-up to the holiday season, which is expected to represent the best one for software in recent years.
While handheld consoles are struggling to attract consumers’ interest and are progressively becoming a specialist niche product, new generation static consoles are expected to be on a strong growth trajectory in the near future.
This is mainly the result of static consoles’ evolution into multi-functional hubs that better satisfy consumers’ needs and play a key role in non-gaming-related living-room entertainment. Such improved usability has also the potential to be further developed by effectively responding to consumers’ interest in the integration of the console and mobile worlds, for example through app and games that complement each other.
Covered in this report
Static consoles are devices designed primarily to play games through connection to a television, and are capable of playing games either from a disc or as a digital download. Steam Machines would be covered under this definition, but are not currently included in Mintel’s market sizing or consumer research. This may change in 2016 depending on when the devices start to filter onto the market.
Portable consoles are devices designed primarily to play games either from cartridges, smaller discs or as digital downloads. Smartphones and tablets – and the games played on them – are not included in this definition.
Current generation or new generation static consoles refer to the Xbox One, Wii U and PlayStation 4.
Previous generation or old generation static consoles refer to Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and Wii.
Current generation or new generation portable consoles refer to the PlayStation Vita and Nintendo 3DS.
Previous generation or old generation portable consoles refer to the Nintendo DS series and PlayStation Portable.
AAA is a term used to describe games developed by major studios, which tend to have multi-million pound development and marketing budgets. AAA is not an acronym, rather a broad classification rating.
Payments to subscription services are not included in Mintel’s market size definition, which focuses only on revenue from the sale of game consoles and games (both physical and digital).
