Research firm Electronic Entertainment Design and Research (EEDAR) has released a comprehensive study proving publishers can create revenue streams beyond their retail sales through console storefronts. The research shows that publishers have the potential to nearly double their income on any given title through revenue generated by both purchasable and sponsored downloadable content. Xbox 360 games offering downloadable content sell more by 129%; PlayStation 3 games sell 16% more. According to the paper, console storefronts represent a major opportunity to offset growing development costs and stabilize revenue momentum between major releases.

The study evaluated each Console’s Storefront in terms of their online offerings. Nintendo's Wii leads in the quantity of downloadable games, Xbox 360 offers the highest number of original downloadable games and PlayStation 3 trails behind in both categories. The PlayStation 3 charges the most for its downloadable content, while Xbox 360 has the largest roster of downloadable content to monetize. EEDAR found that PlayStation 3 has 19.2 Gb of downloadable game titles and game content, while Xbox 360 has 106.5 Gb, which makes a case for why Microsoft is offering the Xbox 360 Elite with 120Gb of hard drive space. The average size per piece of PlayStation 3 downloadable content is almost double that of an Xbox 360 piece, which shows that PS3 users may run into trouble with storage space.

Despite having more downloadable games, the Wii makes no use of other online functionality while 45% of PlayStation 3 downloadable games and 84% of Xbox 360 downloadable games utilize online functionality such as leaderboards, online multiplayer, voice chat, stat tracking, etc. So far developers have not rushed to embrace Console Storefronts as a dedicated outlet. Only 12% of all downloadable games are original titles, the rest being re-releases from earlier platforms. Microsoft is dominating in this area, with 77% of these original titles available exclusively on the Xbox 360.