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Mobile gaming widened its lead over all other game platforms in 2015

  • Posted byby Dean Takahashi
  • Updated
  • 3 min

Mobile games became the biggest category in gaming in 2014, and it widened its lead even more in 2015, according to a new report by market researchers App Annie and IDC.

The data reinforces the point that mobile games reach more than a billion people across the globe, while the hardcore communities on PCs and consoles are concentrated in a smaller number of people. In 2015, mobile games were a $34.8 billion business worldwide, according to the report. PC and Mac games were second as a platform at $29 billion, while home game consoles were an $18.5 billion business and handheld game devices were $3 billion. Full told, more than $85.4 billion was spent on games in 2015, according to App Annie and IDC.

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Written by

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.