Some are drawing attention to how underappreciated the move into video games may be after Tesla introduced a beta version of the Steam gaming platform in Model S and X cars. Gaming in your car may become increasingly prevalent as Tesla develops its Full Self-Driving package over the coming decades; it may even pose a significant new threat to the company.
With its unique new feature, Steam, Tesla owners may access over 50,000 video game titles from their vehicles. This could be a significant step toward the automaker’s goal to create a “living room on four wheels,” as The Street puts it. Put another way, the in-car gaming market has the potential to expand significantly if Tesla’s FSD finally achieves complete autonomy, and the carmaker has already made a name for itself in this developing market.
To be sure, Steam is presently limited to being available when the car is in the park, and FSD has a long way to go before users are allowed to drive and play games simultaneously. For safety reasons, Tesla has also disabled the Passenger Play feature. However, as in-car gaming becomes more popular and optimally safe, it may decide to change this in the future.
Because Tesla’s newest Model S and Model X vehicles have an improved AMD Ryzen processor and AMD RDNA 2 GPU, which should be powerful enough to run games at PS5-level quality, the latest holiday software update enabled Steam for these vehicles. Additionally, Tesla intends to create a retrofit for Model S and X cars made in 2021–2022, which lack the hardware necessary to run Steam games.
In 2019, Tesla debuted in the parked-car gaming space with the launch of Arcade, a collection of about 20 original games. Tesla owners will now have access to one of the biggest video game libraries globally, which features titles from both big studios and tiny, independent development teams, thanks to the arrival of the Steam beta.
The global games and services market is anticipated to reach $188 billion in 2022, according to research from Ampere Analysis quoted in a CNBC report, despite challenges from COVID-19-related supply limits and overall sales declines. The market is expected to see growth in sales once more in 2023, with a prediction of $195 billion.
Piers Harding-Rolls, research director at Ampere, stated, “After two years of huge expansion, the games market is poised to hand back a bit of that growth in 2022 as multiple factors combine to undermine performance.”
“Nevertheless, the year is expected to conclude significantly ahead of the pre-pandemic performance, and the sector’s overall outlook is still optimistic, with growth expected to resume in 2023,” he continued.