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Games market shoots for high score; revenue to exceed $93B

That figure, projected to hit by year's end, is up from the $80B in 2012.

Don Reisinger
CNET contributor Don Reisinger is a technology columnist who has covered everything from HDTVs to computers to Flowbee Haircut Systems. Besides his work with CNET, Don's work has been featured in a variety of other publications including PC World and a host of Ziff-Davis publications.
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Don Reisinger
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The video game market is gunning for a huge score in the marketplace, according to Gartner research firm.

By the end of this year, worldwide spending on games will exceed $93 billion, the report said. That's up from the $78.9 billion spent last year. Gartner further projects that customers will spend $101.6 billion in 2014 and $111 billion by the end of 2015.

Gartner's study is based on predicted sales on hardware and software worldwide. It also includes mobile games, which are set to explode from $9.3 billion in spending last year to $22 billion in 2015. That success will cause trouble for handhelds, according to Gartner. Handhelds will see revenue slide from $18 billion this year to $12.4 billion in 2015.

After a few years of disappointing sales, consoles are set to rebound in a big way, due to new models hitting the market. This year, total console spending will reach $44.3 billion, up from the $37.4 billion spent on consoles last year, according to Gartner. By 2015, total spending on consoles will reach $55 billion, accounting for about half of the entire game market.

"In stark contrast, dedicated game handheld devices and traditional PC games will play a smaller role in the game market and cease to be important game platforms," Gartner research director Brian Blau said in a statement.