Global cloud-gaming market set to grow by 125% to $1.4bn in 2021

Consumer appetite rose rapidly in the past few months with the creation of new platforms such as Microsoft’s xCloud

Cloud gaming runs video games on remote servers and streams them directly to a user's device. Getty

Global cloud-gaming revenue is expected to hit $1.4 billion by the end of this year, up 125 per cent from last year, according to a new report.

Fuelled by the stay-at-home situation brought about by the Covid-19 pandemic, the market is on track to cross the $5bn mark in 2023 as technology and infrastructure continue to improve, said Amsterdam market research company Newzoo.

“Continuous developments and innovation across the sector mean the cloud-gaming market’s revenue and potential will continue to skyrocket,” said Guilherme Fernandes, market consultant at Newzoo.

“Part of 2021’s massive jump in revenue is due to increased cloud-gaming activity from companies big and small, as we expected in last year’s report ... Simply put, cloud gaming is here to stay, and its importance and prominence will only grow.”

Cloud gaming, also called gaming-on-demand, runs video games on remote servers and streams them directly to a user’s device.

Consumer appetite for cloud gaming rose rapidly in the past few months with the creation of new platforms such as Microsoft’s xCloud as part of Xbox Game Pass Ultimate, and as Nvidia resolved early licensing issues with its GeForce Now service, which now supports over 800 titles.

E-commerce company Amazon and social networking platform Facebook also entered the market with their own cloud gaming services.

Due to the high frequency of new services and the big feature improvements for existing ones, Newzoo predicts there will be 23.7 million paying cloud-gaming users by the end of this year.

“2020 has been a year full of fantastic achievements for us, business-wise,” said Andreas Hestbeck, chief executive of RemoteMyApp, a cloud-gaming solution and gaming content aggregator in Poland.

“Having so many people that were suddenly stuck at home was an opportunity of a lifetime for all companies offering entertainment services. RMA registered great spikes in interest.”