Games industry made $184.3 billion in 2024, consoles segment was 84% digital

The worldwide games market pulled in $184.3 billion throughout 2024, driven primarily by digital software and microtransactions, analyst firm Newzoo estimates.

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Newzoo has just updated its forecasted earnings figures for 2024, and the new numbers are actually slightly down. According to coverage from Games Industry.biz, Newzoo now projects that the global video games industry earned $184.3 billion throughout 2024. It should be noted that the data does not include advertising revenues, hardware and peripheral sales, and earnings from regulating gambling games.

The actual results are considerably less than what Newzoo had originally expected that gaming would make in 2024. Previous coverage shows that Newzoo had forecast gaming to hit $187.7 billion in 2024, meaning the current results are off by some $3.4 billion, or nearly 2%. Global digital game revenue was $175.8 billion, making up 96.4% of total earnings, whereas physical clocked in at around $8.5 billion and accounted for just 4.6% of yearly spending.

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Other figures show which publishers hit it big throughout the year.

Electronic Arts had the best-selling game in the United States with EA Sports College Football 25, as per Circana. Black Ops 6 was number two, Helldivers II was number three, Bandai Namco hit the top 5 with Dragon Ball Sparking Zero, and Microsoft swooped in at the #5 spot with Modern Warfare III.

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As for the console market, physical made up 14% of total console gaming earnings, or $31.8 billion, whereas physical made up $8.04 billion, or 16%.

The report also listed that Tencent topped the global mobile game revenue charts with a whopping $8.2 billion from the segment.