There are a lot of ways to look at “cloud gaming” because much of gaming today doesn’t happen without an assist from cloud technology. For the purpose at hand, though, we’re going to define cloud gaming as gaming that mirrors the same way you currently play games… only you don’t need to download a game, buy a physical copy, or use a device (PC, console or phone). Instead, you just need a screen and access to reliable, high-speed internet connectivity. The trick to mass cloud gaming might just be in the proliferation of high-speed internet connections as a replacement for high-end gaming hardware. Until recently, this connectivity could be spotty and inconsistent at best, but this is changing with the widespread rollout of 5G.

While people have used their mobile phones for gaming almost since the dawn of the mobile phone, the computing power, ubiquity and, most crucial of all, connectivity (availability, speeds, and latency) have grown exponentially to make the mobile phone a powerful anytime-anywhere gaming platform. Already accounting for almost half of the world’s 3 billion self-professed active gamers, some 1.5 billion players rely exclusively on their smartphones for access to gaming. Mobile gaming is the mainstream, is the fastest growing gaming sector and its popularity will only continue to grow as 5G networks roll out and revenue opportunities become clearer.