Blog: Games

Key insights from this blog: MIDiA's research shows that a significant portion of gamers consider couch co-op a favourite genre. The runaway success of Split Fiction supports these findings Producing more couch co-op games would cater to gamer segments that MIDiA has identified as being underserved, including women and older gamers As growth across gaming slows, couch co-op games are a key opportunity the industry needs to seize Split Fiction , the co-op-only adventure game from Hazelight Studios, has sold over 2 million copies in one week, generating revenues of over $100 million.

Key insights from this blog: There is ample opportunity for the games industry to leverage music to its advantage Key MIDiA data highlights that real-world live concerts using game music AND artists recording original music specifically for games are two underutilised strategies The music industry is not leveraging games as well as it could, but there is some low-hanging fruit – backed up by case studies – that should change that.

We are proud to have launched our new gamer segmentation , which focuses on motivations, attitudes, and underlying reasons behind gaming behaviours. This article zooms in on some key data and insights from our segmentation, based on both qualitative and quantitative data.

YouTube’s growing strength on smart TVs is a head scratching moment for the video industry. The social video platform recently revealed that US consumers watched 1 billion hours of YouTube content daily on their smart TVs in December 2024.

The attention economy is oversaturated. Games are not just competingwith other games but with TikTok, YouTube, Netflix, and well ... life. But the games industry – especially premium games on console and PC – has a unique twofold challenge: Supply : New AAA games can take five years or more to make (and often have budgets in the hundreds of millions) Demand : Player attention and play time are already maxed out MIDiA’s consumer research for Q4 2024 underlines just how little time consumers have to play.

Sony released its financial results for calendar Q4 2024. Here are the high-level results: Sony generated revenues of $27.9 billion As always, its Game & Network Services (G&NS) Segment – PlayStation – was the biggest segment (38%) Sony Music accounted for 11% and Sony Pictures for 9% of revenue share respectively We'll be focusing on PlayStation for the rest of the article.

The word “bootleg” has long left a bad taste in brands’ mouths. Quite literally defined as “illicit goods,” these unauthorised versions or replications of clothes, handbags, concert tees, and other items have long plagued brands.

Nintendo released its nine-month earnings ending December 31, 2024. Its revenues were $6.1 billion, dropping 31.4% year on year, with: Nintendo’s dedicated platforms (hardware, software, subscriptions, and accessories) accounting for 94.

We are delighted by the overwhelmingly positive response and discussions sparked during our 2025 predictions webinar. We are grateful for all the engaging questions you asked during the session. Though we were unable to get through all of the excellent questions in the one-hour window, we certainly have not forgotten them.

We just published our flagship games report MIDiA Research’s Global Games Forecasts 2025–2031 and its accompanying dataset. What you need to know: The games market is mature , so double-digit growth is a fantasy and the industry will only see slight growth going forward The global number of gamers will keep growing , but ARPPU will slightly decrease over time due to growing gamer numbers in emerging markets The oversaturation of live services will see the developer pendulum swing back towards premium games on console and PC The mega-budget strategy will slowdown in favour of shorter budgets – outside of the live-service incumbents and a few select “prestige” studios Multi-game subscription user growth is reaching maturity , though revenues will grow via pricing increases (and perhaps ad-based tiers) in the future The report dives into player forecasts , revenue forecasts for software (full-game advertising, and in-game split by cosmetics and progress-based) , hardware (console and XR), and subscriptions – all up to 2031, with platform and regional splits.

As we said in our games trends to watch article , 2025 will be the year of the portable. Nintendo kicked that off in earnest, finally lifting the curtain on its Switch 2 console. Here are the basics: The Switch 2 seems iterative – a bigger, better Switch with some quality-of-life improvements It is coming out in 2025 It plays Switch 1 games too, both physical and digital Nintendo will announce its software lineup on April 2, 2025 It will hold several in-person events across North America, Europe, Oceania, and Asia to build fandom and let fans go hands-on Our clients and the press have been sending us plenty of questions, so we decided to answer the most frequently asked here.

Diminishing returns on console generations, cash-strapped consumers, and increasing console prices might just open up a new pricing model for consoles – one in which consoles look increasingly like smartphones.

New year, new research! We capped off 2024 by asking a representative sample of gamers [n=6,300] how they feel about developers using generative AI to make games (and how it affects purchasing decisions).

The year 2024 has been eventful for the games market to say the least. Call of Duty came to Game Pass, Sony released its PS5 Pro console, live-service games faced a reckoning, and gaming has solidified its space at the heart of entertainment.

Game publishers have long used third-party video platforms such as Twitch and YouTube as springboards for game promotion. In return, Twitch and YouTube receive ad- and creator-driven revenues (like donations).

What makes a fan in 2024? Is it how much they spend? How often they watch, listen or play? Is it how much they broadcast their fandom across social apps? Of course, the answer is all the above – and more.

One of my favourite parts of the MIDiA year is creating the MIDiA predictions report and webinar. It is always a true team effort, with our team of analysts spending weeks brainstorming ideas, proposing predictions, stress testing those to within an inch of their lives, and then writing the report.

Seemingly every manufacturer in the games space is working on a portable machine. Now, Bloomberg sources claim that Sony has started early work on a portable that plays PS5 games. Microsoft’s head of gaming, Phil Spencer, has already confirmed that Xbox is working on its own portable (also per Bloomberg ).