Global game business is booming, but physical store sales may ‘evaporate’ by 2015

The global games business will grow to more than $100 billion by 2017. But there will be great turmoil as mobile games will generate more revenue than consoles on a global business as early as 2015, and physical store sales will “evaporate” in 2015, dropping below 20 percent of the market in the U.S., according to market researcher Newzoo.

Each year will bring us new disruptions for the game market, as traditional console and PC games give way to digital games on mobile and online platforms. How companies strategize around these changes will determine the winners and losers, according to Peter Warman, chief executive of Newzoo.

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Dean Takahashi

Dean Takahashi is editorial director for GamesBeat. He has been a tech journalist since 1988, and he has covered games as a beat since 1996. He was lead writer for GamesBeat at VentureBeat from 2008 to April 2025. Prior to that, he wrote for the San Jose Mercury News, the Red Herring, the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, and the Dallas Times-Herald. He is the author of two books, "Opening the Xbox" and "The Xbox 360 Uncloaked." He organizes the annual GamesBeat Next, GamesBeat Summit and GamesBeat Insider Series: Hollywood and Games conferences and is a frequent speaker at gaming and tech events. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.