Newzoo: Most established live-service and evergreen titles were flat or down year over year in H1 2026

Live-service and evergreen titles were flat or declined year-over-year in the first half of 2026 compared to 2025

The data firm’s newly published Global Games Market Report found that growth was limited to a few titles, including World of Warcraft, Diablo 4, Overwatch, Roblox, and select international releases from Tencent.

While PlayStation Plus is expected to support growth for multi-game subscription services, digital revenues declined year-on-year in the first half of 2026 across six Western markets. Newzoo attributed this to “free-to-play and annualised premium weakness outweighing strong new releases.”

The data firm forecasts console player growth will reach 3% this year, up from nearly flat growth of 0.5% in 2025, driven by the launch of Grand Theft Auto 6 and reaccelerated by PlayStation.

GTA 6 and first-party titles on Nintendo Switch 2 are expected to expand the install base for generation 9 consoles.

Recent Nielsen IQ data shows PlayStation 5 and Xbox console sales in the UK rose by 33% and 34% respectively following the GTA 6 premiere on Netflix.

Newzoo’s director of market intelligence, Emmanuel “Manu” Rosier, recently told GamesIndustry.bizthat without GTA 6, console revenues would remain flat compared to 2025.

Newzoo’s report lists the top 10 public games companies for Q1 2026, which collectively generated $37.4 billion in game revenue, up 6.7%.

Tencent led with revenue up 11.9% to $10.8 million, followed by Sony at $5.2 million (down 0.9%) and Microsoft at $5.1 million (down 5.5%). Roblox grew 39.3% year-on-year to $1.4 million, ranking tenth.

As previously reported, Newzoo forecasts the global games market to reach $213.9 billion in 2026, up 6.1% year-on-year.

The Asia-Pacific region is expected to generate nearly half of global revenue at $100.7 billion. China is forecast to reach $58.1 billion, while North America is second at $56.9 billion, with the US totaling $53.5 billion.

Player growth is expected to reach 3.7 billion in 2026, up 4.4% year-on-year, with 44.6% of total players categorised as spenders – up from 39.4% in 2015.

Total average revenue per paying user (ARPPU) forecast to reach $129.6, up 1.4% year-on-year, which Newzoo attributed to “deeper spending within the existing base.”