Developers will see half the business in downloads and cloud computing, says the Wedbush Morgan analyst
The money the games industry makes from digital downloads is set to boom, according to Wedbush Morgan Securities analyst Michael Pachter.
Pachter, who’s no stranger to making bold statements about the games industry, says that today digitally downloads account for 2 per cent (around $400 million) of total industry sales.
Looking at the general trends, however, leads Pachter to believe that the revenue from downloads will increase exponentially over the next decade. He projects that the money generated from digital downloads will double to $800 million in 2010, and redouble to $1.6 billion by 2011.
"Downloads will become 20 percent of the market within five years,” he said in a Reuters report, “and probably peak at around 50 percent of the overall market in 10 years."
He made his prediction with the assumption that the whole games market will grow 5 to 10 per cent annually.
"As broadband penetration increases and the Internet connection migrates to the living room, downloads or cloud computing solutions will become much more viable," he said.
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Silly billy.
People want physical data. People want to hold and collect things. The CD has not died, and as the game audience grows into the masses, neither will game discs.
He even admits that downloads takes up 2% of the market right now. That's absolutely tiny.
zmmmm makes sense.
I love my iPod but would hate to not buy an artist's collection on disc that I can hold and love and throw at the wall if they ever become big celebrities!
We will all be old farts by then. Kids of today will not grow up with a sentimental feeling towards physical entertainment products, and we will lose it too due to the fact that it will be more convenient. I say DD will be 60-75% of the market in ten years. Hand on heart, would you buy a CD player today?
Yeah, obviously.
You're only saying that because you, like me, have probably 10 different things to put CDs in. You miht not buy a CD player if you have a DVD playre and might not buy a DVD player if you have Blu-ray device.
What Pachter is not predicting is the retailer's response to all this....
The only CD player I have is in my PC. That's mostly to back it up so I don't have to worry about hunting down discs. CD is just a delivery method for files now. The only thing it has going for it is that it is something you can unwrap.
Same with DVDs. I have a bunch of TV series on DVD, but I tend to just play the backed up version because it's more convenient. Games too. I tend to opt for the Steam/GOG version rather than disc.
Most of all, I live in a small flat and the discs I do have are taking up way to much space. I'll not miss them.
I heard the same thing from a platform holder approximately 3 years (and this was for less than 10 years).
Patcher can say whatever he wants, he won't have the same in 10 years, so, he doesn't give s***.
By the way, I am surprised to see journalists quoting a guy who have been so wrong, so many times in the past.
