About 40% of adult Americans play video games . . .
| According to a new AP-AOL Games poll, 40 percent of American adults play games on a computer or a console. Men, younger adults and minorities were most likely to play those games. Among those who describe themselves as gamers, 45 percent play over the Internet. And more than a third of online gamers spent more than $200 last year on gaming, compared with nearly a quarter of those who don’t play games online.
Online gamers also spent more time playing those games. Forty-two percent of online gamers said they spent at least four hours playing games during an average week, compared with 26 percent of those who don’t play online. About one in six online gamers play more than 10 hours a week.
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70 Percent of Americans Play Video Games
A report today from the NPD Group, a New York-based market research firm, reveals that 72 percent of the U.S. population played video games last year, up from 64 percent in 2006.
And among the people playing games, 58 percent said they played online.
The online participation included everything from children's game sites and casual word, card and puzzle games to the hard-core role-playing games such as "World of Warcraft" and online racing and combat games through consoles such as the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3.
The number of online gamers relative to the total U.S. population is 42 percent so far this year, up from 40 percent in 2007.
In breaking down the online participation, NPD reported that "The PC platform continues to be the driving force in online gaming, with 90 percent of online gamers stating they use a PC to play games online, 19 percent claiming they use a video game system (console or portable) and 3 percent claiming they use a cell phone.
"Four out of 10 online gamers are ages 2-17, driven heavily by kids ages 6-12. Kids ages 2 to 12 are driving more than 25 percent of online gaming, while 18-24 year olds only represent 10 percent of online gaming."
For perspective on how people are using the latest video-game consoles -- Microsoft's Xbox 360, Sony's PlayStation 3 and Nintendo's Wii -- the report noted, "At this point in the lifecycle of today's video game consoles, multiple console ownership is low, with only 3 percent
reporting that they own two of the three 'next-gen' systems and only 2 percent claiming to own all three systems."
The breakdown on console online play, according to the report: "Xbox 360 is the top system used, with 50 percent stating they play games online via that system. On average, Xbox 360 owners spend the most time per week using their 360s to play games online, followed by PC and PS3 owners using these respective systems for online game play. (Thirteen) percent of online gamers spend 20 hours or more per week on online gaming."
Along with the report, NPD analyst Anita Frazier said in a statement: "Despite the buzz in the industry regarding online gaming, it is still relatively small compared to offline gaming. There is still a large, untapped market for gaming in general and online gaming in particular."
The first video game was Made in England.
