14 DAY TRIAL // Michael Pachter, the analyst watching the video-game industry for Wedbush Morgan, has said that the most important development in the coming years will be the increase of the importance of cloud gaming, with more freedom in how and where the plays are given to the gamer.
Speaking about cloud-based gaming, the analyst has said, “It’s here now. I think it gets big in the next three or four years. By 2015, the cloud will be pretty significant, by 2020 the cloud could be half of all games and by 2030 the cloud will be 100 percent of all games.”
The analyst also sees the move to the cloud as being a positive one for both publisher and developers, with the biggest loser being the second-hand market, which will be all but wiped out, severely limiting the options of those who do not have a lot of disposable income to spend on video games.
Pachter said that he expects both Sony and Microsoft to launch new home consoles around 2015, but he says that both of them will offer games through streaming, aiming to make money via the cloud and cut the costs associated with physical sales.
The analyst also talked about Japanese video-game development, saying, “My opinion is, the Japanese publishers get smaller and smaller and smaller and become less and less relevant.”
The analyst is widely known for talking about a wide range of issues that affect the video-game industry, but he has also made a number of predictions that have not turned out to be true.
At the moment, both Sony and Microsoft seem to be pretty uninterested in streaming video games to the PlayStation 3 and the Xbox 360 and have a limited line up that is available via digital distribution and there's no sign that either of the two will have a major shift in posture in the coming years.