A large installed base of cloud gaming capable devices, big brand names entering the cloud gaming market, and improving network performance will drive cloud gaming to new heights in 2015, according to a new report from Strategy Analytics (www.strategyanalytics.com). The report notes that:
° PlayStation Now and NVIDIA Grid Game Streaming Service will reach nearly 30 million devices by year-end 2014 and will grow 500% to almost 150 million by year-end 2015.
° Game streaming is more resource intense and lag-sensitive than OTT video streaming, so cloud gaming companies must be mindful of acceptable trade-offs in quality of experience and network performance requirements in order to reach a significant portion of the market.
° Primarily to support and profit from backward compatibility, Strategy Analytics expects other major players in the gaming industry to jump into the cloud gaming market once Sony or NVIDIA craft a successful pricing strategy.
“2014 is proving to be a watershed moment with major players putting their credibility and brand names on the line to make cloud gaming work,” says Michael Goodman, director, Digital Media Strategies, Strategy Analytics. “While broadband speeds and consumer acceptance of subscription models have come a long way, access to content remains an issue for all services. The major video game publishers have so far successfully managed an incremental transition from physical to digital media, but cloud gaming offers publishers a new revenue stream.”