Sega: Cloud gaming is market's fastest-growing segment

Who was there: John Clark, Sega's UK managing director.

What was said: Clark opened his talk at Cloud Gaming Europe by looking at the potential growth for the cloud gaming market. He suggested that in 2010, the PC download games market was roughly $420 million, while cloud services were $85 million. In 2015, he suggested those figures would be $960 million and $460 million, respectively. Those estimates were probably on the low side, he added, based on changes in the market since they were calculated.

This makes the cloud the fastest-growing sector of the games market, Clark said. This growth can and will continue, in part because there is the potential to reach those outside of the core gaming audience. Specifically, he suggested that franchises such as Football Manager and Total War would work very well via cloud services.

The cloud represents a huge opportunity for publishers as it opens up all manner of new promotional opportunities around events such as the Olympics. There's also significant upside for gamers, due to the much-vaunted potential of cloud services to deliver truly platform-agnostic titles that can run on almost any device, from tablets to televisions to mobile phones.

Takeaway: The cloud is the fastest-growing segment of the gaming market at the moment, and publishers would be very foolhardy not to make sure they've got a strong presence in the space.

Quote: "Now's the time for Sonic to have a resurgence."--Clark, pointing out that Nintendo's refusal to bring its franchises to non-Nintendo platforms gives the speedy Hedgehog a significant opportunity in the cloud.