Microsoft: Console still accounts for 42% of the total video games market

With Microsoft and Sony about the throw millions and millions of pounds at launching their next-gen consoles, some observers may quite rightly ask one question – why?

After all, mobile and casual games are the new frontier, right? Folk don’t want to spend 50 on triple-A games, let alone anything up to 400 on a new console!

Not so, according to data from Microsoft.

It reckons that console gaming still accounts for 42 per cent of the global video games market. That’s $27bn per year of gaming’s global annual revenue pot of $65bn.

Console is named as the most valuable of the five named sectors followed by PC ($12bn), mobile/tablet ($10bn), social/browser ($8bn) and handheld ($8bn). It adds that over 1bn people play games and give the global software profit figure at $12.1bn.

It also bravely predicts that the next generation of consoles will grow the market by 28 per cent over the peak numbers enjoyed in the last generation.

All this and more can be found on Microsoft’s Xbox Wire blog.