Digital Distribution for Game Software Expected to Reach $7.7bn by 2012E
For Immediate Release
New York, NY – As mainstream publishers and hardware manufacturers are stepping up their efforts on the digital distribution for games software, the overall market is showing a promising increase.
With the Free2Play model slowly reaching maturity, other gaming venues are also beginning to see the benefits of distributing content digitally. At a recent analyst briefing, Nintendo president Satoru Iwata expressed interest in the Kindle’s business model. “I’m interested because it’s a new business model in which the user doesn’t bear the communications cost,” Iwata said.
Similarly, Sony’s recently released PSP go relies on WiFi to download content for the device. Brick-and-mortar retailers have done little to promote the handheld, since they traditionally make only a small margin on hardware and rely mostly on software sales. The chasm between traditional retail and digital distribution, in other words, is set to grow wider as major players investigate the space.
According to SuperData’s managing director, Joost van Dreunen, “Digital distribution also lowers entry barriers in emerging markets, side-steps conventional piracy issues, and allows for a higher degree of up-selling. Particularly as broadband penetration continues to roll out, digital distribution will play a huge part in how consumers access content.”
About SuperData Research, Inc.
SuperData is comprised of a network of industry experts and researchers. We all work in the industries that we write about, but feel that research can sometimes take too long to become available or is just plain too expensive. So we do it ourselves, and publish it here for cheap.
SuperData’s report, Digital Software Forecast 2005-2012E, is available for purchase here.
