iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

George Jijiashvili @giokinto.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

The wider industry is pivoting away from enclosed headsets toward lighter glasses. Valve built an impressive upgrade for its core users, but the Steam Frame is fundamentally designed to strengthen a niche, not break out of it.

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George Jijiashvili @giokinto.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

The Steam Hardware Survey confirms XR headsets remain niche, with VR usage averaging just 1.9% over 5 years. Omdia data shows global XR shipments fell 38.7% YoY to 1.9M in 1H 2026, marking a 4th consecutive year of decline since its pandemic peak in 2021.

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George Jijiashvili @giokinto.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

Valve has no pretense that the Frame will expand VR's audience. It won't. Astonishingly, the Index still holds 11% of active VR share on Steam 7 years post-launch. Despite aging hardware, this loyal base was clearly big enough for Valve to justify releasing the Frame.

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George Jijiashvili @giokinto.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

Headlines about the $1,059 price feel misplaced. When the Index launched in 2019, its full kit cost ~$1,300 inflation-adjusted. The Frame is actually cheaper while adding standalone features, and is priced appropriately for high-end VR enthusiasts.

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George Jijiashvili @giokinto.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

The inside-out, all-in-one form factor is a massive upgrade over the tethered, sensor-dependent Index. Add a unique ARM-based SteamOS with x86 translation and dedicated Wi-Fi 6E for low-latency PC streaming; it’s clearly a cutting-edge piece of kit.

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George Jijiashvili @giokinto.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

🥽 The Steam Frame headset is mostly a fan service, rather than a breakthrough that can revive a shrinking VR category. Okay, that's a bit unfair. The Steam Frame does represent genuine technological leaps for XR hardware, but its impact will sadly be limited. 🧵👇

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George Jijiashvili @giokinto.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

Ultimately, this move enforces my long-running view: cloud gaming is a complementary feature for strengthening existing platforms, rather than a technology that can scale successfully as a pure-play, standalone offering.

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George Jijiashvili @giokinto.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

Despite this friction, I think this pivot will help Xbox bring cloud gaming to more people while improving overall quality. Nvidia uses GeForce Now to funnel in future PC gamers, while Netflix leverages it to boost subscriber engagement.

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George Jijiashvili @giokinto.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

Selling playtime passes also lowers the barrier for smart TV users to try cloud gaming without subscription dread. Still, buying playtime isn’t familiar in the West, unlike Asian markets driven by net cafes. Western gamers are heavily conditioned to flat-rate access.

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George Jijiashvili @giokinto.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

The industry hoped server/component costs would drop or tech breakthroughs would make this viable, but the ongoing component crisis squashed those dreams for now. Xbox’s move is completely logical: cap power users, protect capacity, and improve the average experience for everyone else.

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George Jijiashvili @giokinto.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

There aren't enough "ideal" players who dip in occasionally while paying a monthly fee. The landscape is strewn with failed services: Stadia, Utomik, Hatch, OnLive, CareGame, PlayGiga. Even Nvidia introduced a 100-hour cap earlier this year despite owning the GPUs and infrastructure.

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George Jijiashvili @giokinto.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

Running a cloud gaming subscription is like running a gym: you sign up as many people as possible and pray they rarely show up. The flaw is that subscribers are usually power users who cost more than their fee. Extreme exmample is Stadia user with 6,000 hours on RDR2 – that cost Google ~$2,500.

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George Jijiashvili @giokinto.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

The core challenge has always been expense. The industry tried positioning this as "Netflix for games," but every minute of gameplay adds directly to running costs. Unlike video, where CDNs distribute cached files to millions, each game instance must be rendered individually per user.

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George Jijiashvili @giokinto.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

⚰️ Xbox imposing time limits is the final nail in the coffin for the idea that a subscription alone can sustain a cloud gaming service 🧵👇 Xbox announced Game Pass tiers will be capped at 5–15 hours of cloud gaming per month, alongside options to buy extra playtime.

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George Jijiashvili @giokinto.bsky.social · 09/03/2026

Huge thanks to Ukie for putting together a strong conference, and to Nick Poole OBE, Bhavina Jennings, Sam Collins, and the whole team for making it happen! #UkieConference #ukgames #gamesindustry #games @ukieofficial.bsky.social

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George Jijiashvili @giokinto.bsky.social · 09/03/2026

• A reality check on the adoption of AI in game development I’ve had a great response from attendees who connected with me afterwards, and it was affirming to hear my presentation points echoed in the afternoon panels.

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George Jijiashvili @giokinto.bsky.social · 09/03/2026

Alongside sharing some top-level market context, I focused on three topical themes backed by research from the Omdia games team: • The “content crush”: growing oversaturation of games across platforms • The impact of memory and storage price surges on games hardware and software

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George Jijiashvili @giokinto.bsky.social · 09/03/2026

📊🎮 It was a privilege to present at the inaugural Ukie Conference 2026! The event brought together leaders from across the UK games industry for a day of discussion on where it goes next – from regulation and funding, to emerging tech and evolving business models. 🧵👇

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George Jijiashvili @giokinto.bsky.social · 22/12/2025

And finally, 𝗔𝗜 𝗶𝗻 𝗴𝗮𝗺𝗲𝘀 will become far more visible from 2026 onwards. Consumer backlash hasn’t materialised, but within the industry the debate is only intensifying – particularly around jobs, workflows, and creative ownership.

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George Jijiashvili @giokinto.bsky.social · 22/12/2025

AI-driven demand for memory and data centre capacity will 𝗽𝘂𝘀𝗵 𝗵𝗮𝗿𝗱𝘄𝗮𝗿𝗲 𝗽𝗿𝗶𝗰𝗲𝘀 𝘂𝗽 and increase the cost of running live games. This will be one of the biggest challenges that the whole industry will have to contend with next year.

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George Jijiashvili @giokinto.bsky.social · 22/12/2025

𝗚𝗧𝗔 𝗩𝗜, now expected in late 2026, will be the biggest game launch ever (as long as it lands on schedule! 👀). It’ll lift hardware sales, but most publishers will be hoping to stay well clear of its launch window (AKA "The Blast Zone").

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George Jijiashvili @giokinto.bsky.social · 22/12/2025

Regulation around 𝗰𝗵𝗶𝗹𝗱𝗿𝗲𝗻 𝗴𝗮𝗺𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗼𝗻𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗲 is tightening; from the UK’s Online Safety Act to Australia’s under-16 social media ban, this is a trend that will increasingly shape game design, platforms, and monetisation.

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George Jijiashvili @giokinto.bsky.social · 22/12/2025

We’re deep into what Omdia calls the “𝗖𝗼𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝗖𝗿𝘂𝘀𝗵", as games release volumes keep rising across console, PC, and mobile – all while the player base grows slowly. Discovery and retention are now core challenges for studios of all sizes.

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George Jijiashvili @giokinto.bsky.social · 22/12/2025

Mobile remains the engine of the industry, accounting for 60% of total spend, followed by console (23%) and PC (17%). Despite ongoing debate about the long-term relevance of 𝗰𝗼𝗻𝘀𝗼𝗹𝗲𝘀, the reality is 𝘁𝗵𝗲𝘆’𝗿𝗲 𝗵𝗲𝗿𝗲 𝘁𝗼 𝘀𝘁𝗮𝘆 for the foreseeable future, continuing to underpin high-end AAA game development

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George Jijiashvili @giokinto.bsky.social · 22/12/2025

Global consumer spend on games hits $𝟭𝟵𝟬𝗯𝗻 𝗶𝗻 𝟮𝟬𝟮𝟱, 𝘂𝗽 𝟭𝟬% 𝘆𝗲𝗮𝗿 𝗼𝗻 𝘆𝗲𝗮𝗿. That follows three fairly flat, post-pandemic years, but momentum is clearly back. 2026 is shaping up well too, with 9% growth to $207bn.

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George Jijiashvili @giokinto.bsky.social · 22/12/2025

📽️ A nice way to bookend the year – talking to CNBC International about where the games industry stands in 2025, and what's ahead. 🦌👇 🔗 Video: www.linkedin.com/feed/update/... Highlights from the conversation in 🧵

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George Jijiashvili @giokinto.bsky.social · 08/12/2025

Was just putting a chart together for a post, and then saw this post. Thought I'd extrapolate Nov 2025 figures out to end of the decade. Kind of... disappointing, even with that crazy assumption!!!! Just shy of 10m cumulative by end of 2030 💀. Who knew, hardware is hard 🤔

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George Jijiashvili @giokinto.bsky.social · 14/11/2025

Sadly, beyond that enthusiast audience, the broader story won't change: VR’s penetration within the Steam ecosystem will remain similar, as the Frame strengthens the high-end niche rather than meaningfully expanding the market.

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George Jijiashvili @giokinto.bsky.social · 14/11/2025

Overall, it's a very encouraging news for VR fans: Valve clearly sees value in the platform, and it brings innovative features around its form factor, wireless streaming, and ARM-based SteamOS enabling standalone play of PCVR content.

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George Jijiashvili @giokinto.bsky.social · 14/11/2025

It underlines that there’s a loyal group of PCVR players, who stuck with the Index all these years. This is the core audience for the Steam Frame, who'll be looking to upgrade from the aging Index hardware.

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George Jijiashvili @giokinto.bsky.social · 14/11/2025

PC-first VR still has a committed audience, as evidenced by Valve Index enjoying disproportionally high usage share on Steam, currently at 14%.

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George Jijiashvili @giokinto.bsky.social · 14/11/2025

While this decline may partly reflect Steam’s user base growing faster than VR adoption, it also highlights that VR isn’t gaining meaningful traction among the most dedicated gamers.

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George Jijiashvili @giokinto.bsky.social · 14/11/2025

What really stands out in the Steam Hardware Survey data is how little VR usage on Steam has changed over the past six years, which has hovered around 1.9%. It's currently at 1.6%, down from an average of 2.1% in 2021.

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George Jijiashvili @giokinto.bsky.social · 14/11/2025

🥽 The Steam Frame will be welcomed by the PCVR community that’s felt sidelined by Meta, but will it unlock a new audience? (no) 🧵👇 #valve #steam #steamframe #vr #xr

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George Jijiashvili @giokinto.bsky.social · 27/10/2025

For those of you who have played these two games, what are your thoughts? Do you agree with me, or do I just need to "get gud"? 🤔 #Silksong #Hades2 #videogames

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George Jijiashvili @giokinto.bsky.social · 27/10/2025

On the other hand, Silksong increasingly left me feeling more frustrated than fulfilled. I would die frequently, seemingly due to random/unintentional factors - thus blaming the game. I think Hades 2 gave AGENCY to me as a player, whereas playing Silksong felt punishing, rather than challenging.

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George Jijiashvili @giokinto.bsky.social · 27/10/2025

These kind of games normally don't appeal to me, but their predecessors, Hollow Knight and Hades were rare exceptions. Hades 2 has kept me engaged with a sense of control and progression: when it came to deaths, I blamed my own lack of skills/knowledge, and not the game/enemies themselves.

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George Jijiashvili @giokinto.bsky.social · 27/10/2025

Silksong and Hades 2 were two of my most anticipated games this year. Sadly, one of them has disappointed me... Yes, one is a metroidvania and other is a roguelike, but both games revolve around challenging, repetitive gameplay - with the games expecting you to die... a lot. 🧵👇

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George Jijiashvili @giokinto.bsky.social · 25/09/2025

Perhaps people think this is British Petroleum -> BP type situation? (But yeah, to your point, I do see how this could have been communicated better)

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George Jijiashvili @giokinto.bsky.social · 04/09/2025

Back in February 2019, when I thought #Silksong was just around the corner 🤣

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George Jijiashvili @giokinto.bsky.social · 18/08/2025

Every mode and map, big or small, just felt like Call of Duty, in the worst possible way 🥲 I'm not the target demographic for these types of FPS games to begin with, but the slight 'tactical' elements of Battlefield 1 for example really appealed to me.

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George Jijiashvili @giokinto.bsky.social · 31/07/2025

📒 For our clients, my colleague Rob Gallagher's 49-page recent report takes a deep dive into Netflix's games strategy and assesses the outlook for its plans. 🔗 "Netflix's New Games Strategy: A Data-Driven Assessment" report can be accessed via the link below: omdia.tech.informa.com/om129522/net...

omdia.tech.informa.com

Netflix’s New Games Strategy: A Data-Driven Assessment

In March, Netflix provided a major update on its games strategy, focused on reducing variety and targeting four key genres: mainstream, narrative, kids and party. This report provides context for Netf...

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George Jijiashvili @giokinto.bsky.social · 31/07/2025

Golf Mayhem is the latest indicator of where Netflix might be heading with its games strategy: platform-agnostic, synergistic with its video content, and using games to support 'content moments' rather than build standalone game franchises.

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George Jijiashvili @giokinto.bsky.social · 31/07/2025

It’s not yet clear to me exactly what tech is being used to deliver the game. It could be cloud streaming, HTML5-based, or something in between, but from a user perspective, the experience was mostly smooth, with only occasional stutters. The phone-as-controller setup worked surprisingly well.

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George Jijiashvili @giokinto.bsky.social · 31/07/2025

🪩The game leans hard into a ‘retro’ aesthetic – both visually and in its intentionally clunky feel – as a nod to the era when the original Happy Gilmore was released. That stylistic decision fits the nostalgic framing, though it's clearly a novelty rather than a long-term service game.

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George Jijiashvili @giokinto.bsky.social · 31/07/2025

🪩 The timing aligns directly with a major film release, suggesting Netflix is now beginning to realise its long-speculated strategy of synchronising game and video content drops.

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