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What Was the Game Console Market Worth in 2018? IHS Markit’s $47 Billion Estimate

IHS Markit estimated the 2018 game console market at $47 billion, with content and services rising and packaged content spending declining.
World2018? IHS Markit's $47 Billion Estimate Length2 min Posted Quest giverVGSources Team
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IHS Markit estimated that the game console market reached $47 billion in 2018, up about 20% from the prior year, according to a May 20, 2019 report by GizChina. That is a historical estimate, not a current market figure. The underlying IHS Markit report is not available in the GizChina article, so its geographic scope, revenue definition and methodology cannot be independently confirmed.

What was the game console market worth in 2018?

The May 20, 2019 GizChina article attributes the $47 billion estimate and roughly 20% year-over-year increase to IHS Markit. Because the article does not link to or reproduce the original report, the figure should be treated as a reported estimate rather than a fully specified market measurement. The article does not establish which regions or revenue categories were included, or how the total was calculated.

Source: GizChina, May 20, 2019.

What drove console market growth in 2018?

Hardware sales

GizChina’s account says Nintendo Switch’s success helped global console sales reach their highest level in a decade. It also says Xbox One and PS4 maintained their global market share. The article does not provide unit-sales totals or market-share percentages, so those statements describe the reported direction of the market rather than quantifying each company’s contribution.

Content and services

The article reports that combined console content and services spending rose from $27 billion in 2017 to nearly $32 billion in 2018. These are combined figures; it does not give separate totals for content and services.

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It describes complete game downloads, paid downloadable content, virtual currency and passes among the market’s content categories. Nintendo Switch Online is also mentioned: the article attributes a 1% share of the console market’s service area in 2018 to the subscription. It does not define that denominator, so the percentage should not be read as 1% of the entire $47 billion market.

Packaged content

Packaged content spending was the only area among hardware, content and services that the article says declined. It does not state the size of that decrease or provide comparable category totals.

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How to interpret the $47 billion figure

The estimate helps describe how IHS Markit’s 2018 console market was characterized at the time, particularly the reported growth in combined content and services and the decline in packaged content. It cannot, on the information available in the GizChina article, be directly compared with a current market estimate: the geographic coverage, revenue definition and methodology are unspecified. Any comparison would require a current figure built on the same scope and definitions.

Source: GizChina, Argam Artashyan, “IHS Markit: The Game Console Market Reached $47 Billion in 2018,” published May 20, 2019.

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