Data and Dimensions

S&P Global
  • 5.0 (4)
  • Technology

Data & Dimensions is a podcast dedicated to exploring the transformative evolution of the internet into immersive 3D virtual spaces. Guided by S&P Global's coverage of the metaverse, where the tools and tech of video games shape the next phase of the internet into shared 3D virtual spaces, where humans and machines interact with one another and with data, enhancing and augmenting the physical world as much as replacing it. We delve into the multifaceted implications of this digital frontier for industry, enterprises, consumers and society in general.

  1. 3d ago

    Can Esports Break into Prime Time?

    In this episode of Data & Dimensions, host Neil Barbour is joined by fellow S&P Global Market Intelligence Kagan analyst Richard Berndes to explore the evolving esports market and the findings from their latest research. The discussion examines an industry that now generates roughly $2 billion annually from sponsorships, partnerships, ticketing and merchandise, and is forecast to grow steadily through the end of the decade. While esports has rebounded from its post-pandemic slowdown and continues to attract major brands and global audiences, questions remain about what it will take to unlock the next phase of growth. Key points include:  Esports is growing again, but sustainability remains the industry's biggest challenge. After the post-pandemic slowdown, esports is on a steadier growth path, with roughly $2 billion in annual revenue today and expectations for continued expansion through the end of the decade. The missing piece is media rights. Unlike traditional sports, esports still relies heavily on sponsorships, partnerships and tournament prize pools rather than recurring media-rights revenue, limiting its ability to support teams and leagues at scale. Big events are thriving, but week-to-week competition is underdeveloped. Marquee tournaments such as the Esports World Cup and League of Legends World Championship generate attention and prestige, yet esports lacks the consistent league structures and storylines that drive engagement in traditional sports. The audience is the industry's greatest asset. Esports attracts a large, young, digitally engaged and difficult-to-reach audience, which continues to draw major brands. Long-term success will depend on proving the value of that audience through stronger measurement, ROI data and monetization models. Credits: Host: Neil Barbour, Industry Analyst TMT, S&P Global Market Intelligence Kagan Guest: Richard Berndes, S&P Global Market Intelligence Kagan analyst Produced & Edited By: Neil Barbour, Carl Schmidt Published With Assistance From: Feranmi Adeoshun, Patrick Moroney

  2. Oct 7

    Mobile Moves From Apps to Agents

    Qualcomm used Snapdragon Summit 2026 to argue that the smartphone will remain at the center of personal computing, even as AI agents begin acting across glasses, watches, earbuds, PCs, cars and other connected devices. In this episode, Neil Barbour examines Qualcomm's agentic AI strategy, the new Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 6 platforms and demonstrations that showed how on-device intelligence could remember context, coordinate apps and take action on a user's behalf. Key topics include: Why Qualcomm believes the smartphone will remain the launchpad for the agentic age How smart glasses, hearables, watches and other wearables could provide the context that makes personal AI more useful Demonstrations from Joshua Timothy, AGI Inc., Memories AI and Liquid AI showing agents organizing media, operating apps, remembering context and acting proactively Why trust, privacy, connectivity and cloud-to-edge orchestration remain central challenges for agentic AI and commerce Credits: Host: Neil Barbour, Industry Analyst TMT, S&P Global Market Intelligence Kagan Produced & Edited By: Neil Barbour, Carl Schmidt Published With Assistance From: Feranmi Adeoshun, Patrick Moroney

  3. Sep 23

    The End of the Average Gamer

    The era of the "average gamer" may be coming to an end. In this episode, Neil Barbour is joined by Bain & Company partners Anders Christofferson, Yohann Plantec and Tom Rowland to discuss Bain's latest gaming report, The End of the Average Gamer, and what it says about fragmentation, player spending, personalization and direct-to-consumer monetization in the video game industry. Key topics include: Why Bain argues that the video game market has moved beyond a single "average gamer" profile What Grand Theft Auto VI and other platform-scale franchises reveal about exceptions to market fragmentation Why AI may accelerate development without necessarily solving the challenge of finding an audience How personalization, contextual bandit algorithms and first-party data are reshaping player engagement The rise of direct-to-consumer monetization in mobile gaming, including web stores, personalized offers and reduced dependence on app stores Credits: Host: Neil Barbour, Industry Analyst TMT, S&P Global Market Intelligence Kagan Guests: Anders Christofferson, Yohann Plantec and Tom Rowland, Partners Bain & Company Produced & Edited By: Neil Barbour & Neri Reyes Published With Assistance From: Feranmi Adeoshun, Patrick Moroney

  4. Sep 9

    The Data Behind Gaming's Eight-Quarter Rally

    The video game industry has now delivered eight consecutive quarters of year-over-year growth, a result that stands in contrast to the narrative of stagnation that often dominates headlines. In this episode, Neil Barbour and Eiman Hussain break down second-quarter results from the gaming sector to identify the trends actually driving the market, from surprise hit titles and platform dynamics to the growing importance of PC gaming and direct-to-consumer monetization. Key topics include: Why Nintendo's Tomodachi Life became one of the quarter's biggest success stories Microsoft's gaming performance, Forza Horizon 6, Game Pass pricing changes and the outlook for Gears of War: E-Day Highlights from Gamescom, including The Duskbloods, The Witcher 3 update, Where Winds Meet, Ananta and other upcoming releases Direct-to-consumer monetization in mobile gaming and how publishers are reducing dependence on app stores Credits: Host: Neil Barbour, Industry Analyst TMT, S&P Global Market Intelligence Kagan Guest: Eiman Hussain, Account Manager, S&P Global Market Intelligence Produced & Edited By: Neil Barbour & Neri Reyes Published With Assistance From: Sophie Carr, Feranmi Adeoshun, Patrick Moroney

  5. Aug 26 ·  Video

    Gaming Layoffs, M&A and the Search for Capital

    In this episode, S&P Global Market Intelligence Kagan analyst Neil Barbour examines one of the biggest stories in gaming today: the wave of layoffs, restructurings and studio closures reshaping the industry. Drawing on employment, mergers and acquisitions, and fundraising data, Neil explores why gaming employment continues to decline, what has changed since the pandemic-era boom and why many experienced developers may find it difficult to secure new opportunities within the industry. While the games industry remains much larger than it was a decade ago, investors and acquirers are becoming increasingly selective about where they allocate resources. Neil explains how rising development costs, changing investment priorities and competition from artificial intelligence are influencing both workforce decisions and the future structure of the gaming market. Key points include: • What employment data reveals about gaming's labor market, including how headcount across entertainment software companies has been trending lower since 2023 and why current layoff activity appears concentrated in AAA console and PC development. • Why mergers and acquisitions are providing fewer landing spots for displaced studios, as buyers increasingly favor portfolios, platforms and ecosystems over standalone game development teams. • How fundraising trends have shifted toward mobile, blockchain and platform-oriented businesses, and what that says about investor appetite for large, multi-year game development projects. • Why AI is becoming an increasingly important part of the conversation, both as a competitor for investment capital and as a technology that management teams may view as a pathway to greater development efficiency. Featured speaker Neil Barbour Industry Analyst, TMT S&P Global Market Intelligence Kagan More S&P Global Market Intelligence content Public content • How AI Is Reshaping the Global Economic Outlook | S&P Global • Nvidia earnings preview: Q2 2027 | S&P Global • Global trade buoyed by surge in tech equipment shipments | S&P Global For S&P Global subscribers (login required) • Economics of Streaming Media: Video game fundraising improves in Q2 2026, but capital remains selective • Economics of Streaming Media: Video game M&A Q2 2026: Few safety nets for divested game studios • Economics of Streaming Media: Game console forecast through 2030: DRAM shortage tests already fragile market

  6. Aug 12

    The Future of Gaming is Higher Prices and Fewer Discs

    In this episode, Kagan analyst Neil Barbour and TMT associate Eiman Hussain discuss the state of the video game industry following S&P Global Market Intelligence Kagan's latest game console forecast. The conversation explores rising hardware costs, memory shortages, the future of Xbox, PlayStation's move away from physical media, Nintendo's position in the next console cycle, and what Grand Theft Auto VI could mean for the industry. Key points include: ·       * Why RAM and storage shortages are driving console prices higher, and how AI infrastructure spending is creating new competition for the components that power modern gaming hardware. ·       * Whether Microsoft's next Xbox will look more like a traditional console or a PC, and what that shift could mean for hardware pricing, software distribution and Xbox's long-term position in the gaming market. ·       * Why Sony is moving away from physical discs, what the company's digital sales data says about changing consumer preferences, and whether concerns around game ownership and preservation are justified. ·      * What Valve's Steam Machine reveals about the economics of gaming hardware in 2026, including the challenges facing a $1,000 gaming device in a market already struggling with rising costs.

  7. Jul 29

    Smart Glasses Startup Challenges Industry Orthodoxy on Privacy and Power

    S&P Global Market Intelligence's latest forecast sees an opportunity for smart glasses to be the next big story in wearables, but the industry will have to overcome obstacles around battery life, privacy, comfort and reliable input. This week, we sit down with Thomas Suarez, founder of Raven Resonance, to discuss Raven Prism and how his team has developed novel solutions to these problems that larger tech firms may be overlooking. Key topics include: ➤ Why ambient computing is different from spatial always-on use cases, and how Raven Prism targets micro-interactions and reference material. ➤ The battery and modularity strategy behind its all-day wearable, including hot-swappable power modules and a design aimed at reducing interruptions for charging. ➤ How Raven handles the social and privacy challenges of front-facing cameras with physical camera coverage and clear camera-in-use signaling. ➤ Input and display choices: eye-based control as the primary silent, hands-free interface, plus the trade-offs between LCOS and microLED for different visual workloads. More S&P Global Market Intelligence Content: GenAI companies eye public markets after record private fundraising | S&P Global Microsoft and Meta earnings previews MediaTalk | Season 4 | Ep. 27 - From Fortnite to Smart Frames: Gaming Growth, Hardware Inflation and AR Innovation | S&P Global For S&P Global subscribers (login required): Smart glasses forecast through 2030: Wearable AI looks for its mass market Smart glasses' early movers reload in anticipation of Apple's next play Game console forecast through 2030: DRAM shortage tests already fragile market Host: Neil Barbour Produced & Edited By: Neil Barbour Published With Assistance From: Sophie Carr, Feranmi Adeoshun, Patrick Moroney

  8. Jul 15

    How smartphones are outgrowing casual gaming

    Mobile games represent a massive $110 billion annual market, but the bulk of that revenue has historically flowed through casual, low-impact experiences. While premium smartphones are capable of immersive visuals, developers have long been constrained by the strict power, thermal, and memory limitations of mobile hardware. This week, we sit down with Peter Hodges, Director of Developer Ecosystem Strategy at Arm, and Lukáš Medek, Art Director at Sumo Digital, to discuss Neural Dawn. This production-scale mobile game serves as a bleeding-edge testbed for Arm's new neural technologies, demonstrating console-level dynamic lighting, ray tracing and upscaling within a mobile power envelope. The discussion explores how democratizing high-end PC rendering techniques could permanently shift the platform calculus for developers and players alike. Key topics include: ➤ The creation of Neural Dawn, a full-scale, third-person adventure game built by Sumo Digital to pressure-test neural graphics in a real-world development pipeline, moving beyond the traditional short technical demo. ➤ Unpacking Arm's rendering pipeline, including how Neural Super Sampling and Denoising (NSSD) and Neural Frame Rate Upscaling (NFRU) are being used to reduce rendering costs, lower thermal output, and preserve battery life without sacrificing visual fidelity. ➤ Pioneering Unreal Engine's MegaLights on mobile. Lukáš explains the process of modifying engine source code to run high-end dynamic lighting on a phone, a feature set that isn't even widely deployed in released PC or console games yet. ➤ Why Arm's neural workloads remain tightly coupled with the GPU rather than being offloaded to an NPU, ensuring the ultra-low latency required for real-time graphics rendering. ➤ The "flywheel effect" of neural graphics and how these efficiencies could speed up development timelines (by eliminating the need for baked static lighting) and eventually scale across laptops, handheld PCs, and consoles. More S&P Global Market Intelligence Content: MediaTalk | Season 4 | Ep. 27 - From Fortnite to Smart Frames: Gaming Growth, Hardware Inflation and AR Innovation Picture This: India Plans New Smartphone Supply Chain Incentives | S&P Global MWC 2026: Non-terrestrial networks shift from hype to commercial reality For S&P Global subscribers (login required): Game console forecast through 2030: DRAM shortage tests already fragile market Esports World Cup 2026 — new venue, bigger prize pool Xbox deprioritizes boutique-style game development under new management Host: Neil Barbour Produced & Edited By: Neil Barbour Published With Assistance From: Sophie Carr, Feranmi Adeoshun, Patrick Moroney

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About

Data & Dimensions is a podcast dedicated to exploring the transformative evolution of the internet into immersive 3D virtual spaces. Guided by S&P Global's coverage of the metaverse, where the tools and tech of video games shape the next phase of the internet into shared 3D virtual spaces, where humans and machines interact with one another and with data, enhancing and augmenting the physical world as much as replacing it. We delve into the multifaceted implications of this digital frontier for industry, enterprises, consumers and society in general.

Information

  • Creator
    S&P Global
  • Years Active
    2025 - 2026
  • Episodes
    22
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © 2025
  • Show Website
    Data and Dimensions