10 Major Trends to Watch in 2026 – Niko Partners Predictions
Niko Partners has provided high-integrity data, insights and analysis as local experts with global expertise for over 20 years. In 2026, Niko Partners continues to provide video game market analysis on five regions: China (Mainland China), East Asia (Japan and Korea), Southeast Asia (Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam, and Singapore), South Asia (India) and MENA (Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, and Egypt).
2025 was a year of recovery for the Asia & MENA video game market, with total player spending on game software and services reaching $89 billion, up 2.7% YoY, compared to the 1.4% growth rate in the prior year. We’re bullish that 2026’s growth rate will be slightly higher than 2025, although we do expect more stable growth through 2029 compared to some of the explosive growth witnessed in recent years following pandemic-related boots. There are now 1.7 billion gamers across Asia & MENA. Overall, the Asia & MENA video game market will be a $100 billion opportunity in 2029 with nearly 2 billion players across all platforms.
To kick off the year, we’re publishing Niko’s 2026 Predictions including major trends to watch, accuracy of our 2025 predictions, and our past market model forecast accuracy. Let’s start with our predictions for the video game industry in 2026:
Predictions and major trends for 2026:
1. Women will account for over 40% of players in Asia & MENA
Niko Partners has tracked a consistent rise in female gamer participation across the Asia & MENA region over the past two decades. Women-oriented games such as Love and Deepspace topped revenue charts this year, while core games like Valorant have also seen a rise in women players. In markets such as MENA-3 and India, which traditionally skewed over 80% male, we’ve witnessed a sharp uptick in female gamers. In 2025, women accounted for 37% of gamers in MENA-3 and 40% of gamers in India, and we expect Asia & MENA as a whole to surpass 40% this year.
2. Mobile games will see uneven growth between East and West
Niko Partners is expecting mobile games revenue to grow 3.8% YoY across Asia & MENA in 2026. While this is a low single digit percentage, it will be higher than last year’s 2.4% growth rate and even higher than expected growth from Western markets in 2026. The mobile games market in the West has reached maturity and growth is beginning to stall, while markets such as India, MENA, and Southeast Asia are still seeing healthy growth from mobile games. We expect mobile games growth in Western markets to come in around 1-2% in 2026. The markets we track are outperforming these mature markets.
3. The Nintendo Switch 2 will see a global price hike
The Nintendo Switch 2 is competitively priced compared to the PS5 and Xbox Series X, after the latter consoles witnessed price hikes last year. But we believe the Switch 2 is set to follow in Sony and Microsoft’s footsteps with its own price hike driven by the impact from tariffs, increased memory costs, and broader macroeconomic conditions. Nintendo chose to maintain its $449 entry price last year despite the introduction of tariffs impacting production in China, Japan and Vietnam. More recently, increased demand for AI data centers has pushed RAM and storage prices up.
While we do anticipate Nintendo to increase the price of the Switch 2, they may opt to discontinue the $449 SKU and only sell a $499 or higher bundle SKU instead.
4. More than 2,100 games will be granted ISBNs for release in China
A total of 1,772 video games were approved by China’s National Press and Publication Administration (NPPA) in 2025, up 25% YoY. This includes 1,676 domestic titles and 96 imported games. Imported game approvals were lower than last year, but are being approved more frequently, with monthly approval issuance normalized since October 2024. We expect a more than 20% increase in licenses issued this year, although we do caution that geopolitical relations may change the landscape of import game approvals, with Japan dropping from its #1 position in terms of licenses issued due to ongoing tensions.
5. Government policies will emphasize child safety and addiction in video games
2025 was an important year for online regulation with multiple governments proposing and enacting bans on social media and digital platforms for children. Roblox was also in the crosshairs this year with governments in Southeast Asia and MENA imposing temporary restrictions and even considering bans. In 2026, we expect governments in the region to propose regulations that cover both social media and video game platforms, requiring age verification before certain features can be enabled. However, we do not expect these efforts to be as comprehensive or strict as we see in China today.
6. Asian developers embrace genAI despite mixed player reaction
It’s no secret that genAI has become a hot button issue globally, with polarizing discussions on whether it is truly beneficial for society. This has spilled over to the gaming world where developers have seen backlash for using genAI in certain contexts. Despite this, gamers in Asia continue to be more positive on genAI usage relative to the West, and we expect Asia-based video game studios to continue embracing the technology this year. Nonetheless, we do expect usage to be more pragmatic, focusing on game development such as QA and coding, UGC tools, operations, and marketing, with limited usage in games to avoid negatively impacting the player experience.
7. M&A deals focus on smaller target firms
2025 was a massive year for M&A in the video games industry with Saudi Arabia’s PIF announcing its acquisition of Electronic Arts for $55 billion, and with Tencent investing €1.16 billion in a new Ubisoft subsidiary. We do not expect a top 10 video game related deal to be announced in 2026 (Warner Bros was announced, yet not confirmed, in 2025), which would be a deal with a value over $3.5 billion, as M&A deals shift back to being publisher led and focused on small to mid-sized firms. This year, we expect specialist developers, UGC studios, and dev support studios to be acquired the most.
8. Multiple live service games will add UGC tools and revenue sharing
Fortnite, Roblox, and Minecraft have dominated the UGC space within the video game industry for a long time, and we’re expecting others finally to follow suit, specifically focusing on adding UGC tools and a revenue sharing component to their own existing or new titles. Genshin Impact (miHoYo) was the most recent title to introduce a UGC mode, with plans to monetize it this year. We see this as a shift from “UGC as a feature” to “UGC as a revenue generator,” where creator tools, discovery algorithms, and payouts become a standalone pillar of top live service games.
9. Asia’s game developers will move away from character gacha monetization
A new trend we’ve started to see emerge in the market is video game developers announcing that their new games or existing games will either no longer have loot boxes, remove character gacha elements, or are being branded as non-pay to win. This focus on fairer gameplay and monetization comes amid market saturation in the gacha game segment, where even miHoYo is seeing increased competition among its own portfolio. Regulatory trends and general player fatigue is also playing a role, and we expect more games to market themselves as not including these features going forward.
10. Evergreen games & established IP will increase barriers to entry for new titles
Niko Partners defines an evergreen game as a title that maintains strong user engagement, high player spending, operates as a live service game, and has been on the market for more than 3 years. Evergreen games now account for a disproportionate share of global video game engagement, revenue, and cultural relevance, with consolidation around a relatively small number of long-running titles. In 2026, we expect these titles, along with established IP and franchises such as remasters/remakes, to squeeze mid-tier AA games and also lead to downsizing or the closure of multiple studios that try to directly compete with leading evergreen games.
However, we still see continued room for prestige single player games and distinctive indie games with a clear identity and social layer.
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