Nielsen's people meters show game console growth

Stephen Withers
Tuesday, 06 March 2007 02:03

Your IT - Entertainment

A new Nielsen study shows the number of US homes with a game console such as Microsoft Xbox or Sony Playstation has grown 18.5 percent over the last two years.

Collected as part of Nielsen's National People Meter survey of TV watching, the figures show over half of Americans with a TV in their household also had access to a game console.

The highest incidence was among the young, with 70 percent of 2-11 year olds and almost 80 percent of 12-17 year olds having a console at home. So no great surprises there, although no differences were recorded for males and females.

Those 12-17s were more likely than any other group to have access to a console. Despite assertions that gamers are getting older, less than a quarter of the 'Pong generation' - now in the 50+ category - have consoles.

The incidence of connected consoles has also grown, but only small proportion of systems with that capability are actually connected. Even before the Playstation 3 or Nintendo Wii could affect the figures, more than 28 million households had a Internet-capable console, compared with 45.7 million households with consoles of any kind. Yet only 16 percent (4.4 million households) actually subscribed to an Internet service for their consoles.

So that's covered the potential market, but what about usage?