The launch of a game streaming platform was announced on Tuesday US time, triggering a drop in the stock prices of Sony and Nintendo, the two major Japanese video game companies. Among them, Nintendo's stock price fell 2.99%, and the company launched two world-famous games — “Pokemon” and “Super Mary.” Sony's stock price also fell by 3.01%.
On Tuesday, local time in the US, Google announced that its game streaming platform is called Stadia, and stated that users can play high-end games on this platform without spending a considerable amount of money to buy a special game console or computer. All games will be made available through Google Cloud.
Google's entry into the game market immediately raised concerns about the future of Sony and Nintendo. Previously, this field had been divided between these two companies and Microsoft. In response, Sony and Microsoft will announce details of their plans for the next generation of game consoles in the coming months. The last time the two companies launched a new console was six years ago.
Piers Harding-Rolls, head of game research and analysis at IHS Markit, believes that although Google has launched a new game platform, game consoles are still a “significant and important part” of the overall game market. Judging from the data, game console content and services accounted for 25% of the 2018 market sales of US$128 billion. Gamers' spending on console hardware reached 14.7 billion US dollars, while the overall game console market value was 47 billion US dollars.
Therefore, Piers believes that Google's entry into the cloud gaming sector will not have a huge impact on next-generation console sales. However, the service will provide a new option for players who don't want to spend $400 to buy a new console.
There are also opinions that the Tokyo market is overreacting to Google's entry into the game market. Serkan Toto, CEO of game consulting firm Kantan Games, said, “Although Stadia looks promising and Google is very powerful, the game market is not that easy to win.” At the same time, Stadia's price, convenience, R&D costs and operation will all affect its market response.
“Building a Playstation 2.0 isn't easy, even if the tree behind it is Google.”