Screen Digest believes that the online console market won’t be commercially exploited to its full potential until the next generation of hardware comes along.

While current generation console manufacturers Microsoft and Sony - and to a lesser extent Nintendo - have released online-enabled platforms, the research firm believes that “key members of the traditional games value chain… are acting as bottlenecks to the overall development of the online console market.”

Keen to slow the online market from developing, retailers “are exerting pressure on publishers and manufacturers to steer away from replicating packaged content online,” according to the firm’s research. No doubt keen not to harm their relationship with retail partners, publishers are launching online content that’s generally “low cost and priced, under marketed and incremental to packaged sales.”

Screen Digest senior analyst and head of games Piers Harding-Rolls said: “While the online console market is growing strongly and will provide welcome revenue in later years, today’s consoles have been consigned to the important but ultimately limited online market role of ‘transitional’ devices as the industry only slowly makes its way to a more online-console oriented framework.

“There will be a substantial addressable online market to exploit towards the end of the cycle, but it is likely that this opportunity will remain significantly untapped and it won’t be long before the industry will be forced once again to prepare itself for the next generation of hardware."

Global active online TV consoles will hit 79 million by the end of 2012, according to Screen Digest. And while gamers will become increasingly active in downloading content, annual spend on full game downloads is likely to generate just $1.2 billion by 2013, representing “an important but still limited 11 per cent share of the total current generation console game opportunity, a market still dominated by packaged media.”