Study: console gamer preferences

[AndrewTS 0]

http://www.gamespot.com/all/news/news_6083688.html

 

Survey of console gamers comes up with a mixed bag of preferences.

 

Today, game industry analysts from the Zelos Group released findings that paint an interesting-but-complicated picture of today's typical console gamer.

 

Tapping some 1,000 subjects, the study found console gamers generally rent before buying, still play original PlayStation and GBA games in significant amounts, and prefer to play consoles alone instead of online.

 

Here is a brief roundup of the study's key findings, culled from Zelos documentation:

 

 

The upcoming holiday buying pattern will not dramatically impact market share of the console makers. However, Nintendo may erode Microsoft's lead due to increased GameCube sales spurred by the Cube's new, lower price point.

 

 

Original PlayStation and GameBoy Advance platforms are still viable. Over 26 percent of those surveyed play on a GBA and 35 percent still play on their PSones. These systems have a more substantial addressable market than the Xbox or GameCube and provide a promising opportunity for third party publishers.

 

 

Game rentals add to the industry's overall bottom line. The study reports that about one third of respondents indicate that they rent games and these users have a high propensity to use rentals as a means to inform purchase decisions. Hardcore gamers are more likely to rent games than their avid and casual gamer counterparts. Almost half of hardcore gamers indicate they rent at least one game a month, and almost 20 percent say they rent five or more.

 

 

Word of Mouth rules. Over 70 percent of respondents say conversations with friends are the primary means for securing information on games. Person-to-person feedback can also work against a product. With only 4 percent of respondents indicating interest in purchasing Nokia's N-Gage, it would appear that the Finnish cell phone manufacturer faces an uphill battle fighting the negative buzz that accompanied its handheld game deck's launch.

 

 

Over 50 percent of respondents see DVD playback--included on the PS2 and Xbox, but not on the GameCube--as the number one additional console feature. Over 30 percent of respondents indicated that they would consider features such as personal video recording and DVD recording, both present in Sony's upcoming PSX, in their next console purchase.

 

 

Online gaming and broadband support drive console sales. Over one third of respondents expressed strong interest in console based online gaming.

 

 

However, gamers still prefer to go it alone. Despite interest in playing against others in an online environment, gaming remains largely a solitary activity and games that rely on social interaction have a relatively narrow addressable market. Over 73 percent of respondents claim to play games alone almost always or most of the time, and only 2 percent claim that they never play alone.

 

So, figures indicate I'm a typical gamer. I have zero interest in online play (although I do play gamers in-person with other people; they act as if solo or online is all there is), still play PS1 and GBA, and use rentals to decide what to buy.

 

Still...this puzzles me...

 

Word of Mouth rules. Over 70 percent of respondents say conversations with friends are the primary means for securing information on games.

 

So--how the fuck's sake is Acclaim still in business?!?

[Anya 0]

So...online gaming and broadband support drives console sales....yet generally gamers prefer to play online and not online? Ok..

 

 

I don't rent. I still play PSX and GBA. I like DVD playback. I get gaming info online, not word of mouth.

 

So am I "typical"?

[Lightning Flik 0]

So...online gaming and broadband support drives console sales....yet generally gamers prefer to play offline and not online? Ok..

 

 

I don't rent. I still play PSX and GBA. I like DVD playback. I get gaming info online, not word of mouth.

 

So am I "typical"?

Firstly, I corrected what you meant to say. And secondly, most people buy the stuff to go online because they expect great games for online. Not many games have been their cup of tea and hence why they aren't getting the games.

 

I rented at one time, but lately it's becoming futile to do so. You just KNOW when it's going to be bad, if you take the time to read up on it and find out. However, I have gone by word of mouth because that's most often the time when you'll find out the best and worst of a game. Then you take the game info and slap it all together to get an idea of what's your decision. Buy or not.

 

I've been muling over purchasing FFXI for PC. I'd buy it for my PS2, but I'm used to playing MMORPGs on my computer. Hence is another reason.

[MarvinisaLunatic 0]

Online console gaming is too segmented.

 

Console Owner (X Box/PS2) + Broadband Internet + Willingness to pay some sort of fee + Desire to play online games

 

50% for the DVD playback is actually surprising. The way most people talk, I figured it would be at least 75%. As for all the other stuff, I have no idea why you need video recorders and stuff like that on a video game console. Consoles get outdated in about 4 years, whereas all the extra stuff like video recorders etc will get outdated much quicker. It might be nice to have a 100gb hardrive in your PSX (or whatever it has) but in 1 year 200 gb hard drives will be available and so on and so forth.

 

As for Renting, I was thinking of trying gamefly which is a service similar to NetFlix. If anyones used it Id be interested in hearing about it. One of the reasons why I stopped renting games from Blockbuster is because they seem to carry the ass end of nothing for Gamecube and most of the discs they do have seem abused badly.

 

Games that are being made for the GBA work on the older and newer SP so thats not really surprising. And they are still making oddball PSone games which of course also work on the PS2.

[Skywarp! 0]

Even renting DVDs from Blockbuster is annoying. They're so smudged and scratched on the readable side that you wonder, with CDs being about 15 years old, who the hell doesn't know how to handle a disc.

 

On topic: it's concerning that console bells and whistles are what's most important. Cube doesn't have any, but I consider that the best system. Though I don't want this to turn into a system-argument thread.

[Red Baron 0]

i gave up renting games or DVD's now. People are too careless with the discs and its all scratched up to pieces