Nielsen - usually associated with counting television viewers - has been recently counting American gamers, according to Kotaku and IGN. This is interesting to us Euros, because for a large part, our games consumption is similar to that of our over-the-pond friends. Those with tons of sun and perhaps less English (hello Spain) game less (and who could blame them) but certainly for the Brits, US and UK gaming habits are - in my experience - usually almost identical.
So what's interesting this time round? The quantity of time spent gaming. It's extraordinary.
74 minutes, twice a day?! These people are not watching television, I can tell you that much.
I couldn't actually find the original source of this image; neither Kotaku nor IGN link to it. Rummaging Nielsen turned this up, which is somewhat different from the above in that it includes the last-generation consoles too, which changes the scope a little:
I'd love to see an even more comprehensive breakdown to include PC games and online games. I'm sure this sort of thing exists, but it's probably paid-for content only.
interesting that PS3 is king in the 27+ bracket
even beating Wii, more proof that most Wii's don't actually get used?
Posted by: mac | June 05, 2008 at 12:21
What I find fascinating is the differences per age group. PS3 is the clear favourite for the 27+ generation, whereas the 10-26 range favours the Xbox. I'd be surprised if this is down to the PS3 having games that target the older audience (Xbox and PS3 are pretty identical in releases or games types, regardless of console exclusives), but is more likely to be strong consumer loyalty which remains from the Playstation and PS2.
If this is true or even accountable for part of that swing, Sony are going to be neck deep in the shit when it comes to generation 4 consoles, given the poor performance of the PS3.
Posted by: Simon | June 05, 2008 at 14:43
Totally useless info. This is like the government giving us economic statistics.
Posted by: Tom | June 05, 2008 at 18:51