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Only 15 per cent of UK, French, Spanish and German gamers are interesting streaming services, but this tech isn't really for them anyways

Only 15 per cent of UK, French, Spanish and German gamers are interesting streaming services, but this tech isn't really for them anyways

New research shows that almost three-quarters of gamers from the UK, France, Germany and Spain are not interested in streaming platforms.

That's according to the results of a new Ipsos MORI GameTrack survey - published by GamesIndustry.biz - which shows that 70 per cent of users in these regions say they aren't interested in services like Google Stadia and Microsoft's xCloud. Only 15 per cent of respondents seem to care about such technology, with just three per cent of that figure claiming to be 'very interested'.

A further 12 per cent doesn't know if they're excited or not - we imagine that figure will dip once the tech is out in the wild.

Looking at individual countries, respondents from the UK showed the greatest enthusiasm for streaming services, with 23 per cent saying they were interested - and five per cent ticking 'very interested' - with replies from France and Spain showing 14 per cent of consumers being interested.

The full report is over on GamesIndustry.biz.

Of course, while tech like Stadia and Xcloud is set to roll out in the United States and Europe this year, ultimately these won't be the main markets for streaming services. These regions are used to playing games on consoles, PC and smartphones, so the notion of switching up play is something of a leap.

Where streaming will hit home is emerging markets such as India, where consoles and PC have often been outside the amount of money available to consumers and there is brand new fibre optic infrastructure that allows for the speedy internet speeds required by streaming platforms.

That being said, as it stands right now there isn't much in the way of content specifically designed for these markets, something that will no doubt be rectified in the coming years. Streaming rival Microsoft has pointed out that Google needs content to succeed, something the Big M has in spades. 

IHS Markit reckons that the cloud streaming market could be worth a cool $2.5bn by 2023, a huge increase on the $387m it brought in during 2018. 

Google Stadia was announced at GDC 2019 in a presentation that was heavy on tech we already knew the search giant owned and operated and light on details. We've since had more information about pricing and so on.

Meanwhile, Microsoft revealed its xCloud platform in October 2018, with a beta rolling out at the end of 2019. 


PCGamesInsider Contributing Editor

Alex Calvin is a freelance journalist who writes about the business of games. He started out at UK trade paper MCV in 2013 and left as deputy editor over three years later. In June 2017, he joined Steel Media as the editor for new site PCGamesInsider.biz. In October 2019 he left this full-time position at the company but still contributes to the site on a daily basis. He has also written for GamesIndustry.biz, VGC, Games London, The Observer/Guardian and Esquire UK.