Consoles still on top but smartphones gaining ground, says ESA survey
An ESA survey provides new data on a variety of statistics, from console and smartphone usage to gender and genre breakdowns.
Consoles remain the dominant platform of choice for gamers, according to an ESA survey, but smartphones are gaining ground quickly. The annual sales and demographics data is chock full of breakdowns by gender, age, and genre, but the stats on system usage are likely to catch the most attention.
According to the survey (via Polygon), 68% of American households play on consoles, as compared to 53% on smartphones. Of course, some gamers play on more than one kind of device.
The survey also debunks the common perception of the hobby as the realm of young boys. Women aged 18 or older represent 36% of the gaming population, as compared to only 17% of that figure coming from boys younger than 18. Women aged 50 and older increased significantly during the time period of the survey too, a whopping 32%. And women and men are tied at an even 50/50 for the gender that makes video game purchases.
Casual and social games are ruling the online and mobile game spaces, at 30% and 46%, respectively. Puzzle, trivia, and card games are a close second at 28% and 31%.
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replySteve Watts posted a new article, Consoles still on top but smartphones gaining ground, says ESA survey.
An ESA survey provides new data on a variety of statistics, from console and smartphone usage to gender and genre breakdowns.-
This again? Someone should pass the memo that mobile is gaining ground but that ground is an ocean away from where traditional video games lay.
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unfortunately an individuals' time is not infinite so they do sit in the same world
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Except you generally don't sit on your couch in your home playing smart phone games if consoles are an option.
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I think you'd be surprised
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Mobile games are not sucking away the playerbase of traditional games. They are just another medium for people who generally can't or don't game to pick up gaming. Traditional gameplay is not going anywhere or at least is not being pulled away by the mobile market.
Mobile games are tapping into a market that traditional gaming can't. That's totally fine. The growth of mobile games has very little impact (if not a positive impact) on traditional gaming platforms.
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Gamers playing console games are not the same as gamers playing smartphone games, ESA. Thanks for the useless survey.
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68% game on consoles 53% game on mobile platforms. Clearly there is overlap and this is why more mobile gaming is good for console gaming.
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Sp how did you react when you saw no such posts?
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We could see a 100% figure for consoles and mobile in the future. They are not mutually exclusive, nor are they taking customers away from each other. Mobile gaming has helped increase popularity of gaming on consoles and it will keep doing so. The bigger news is that there is almost twice as many young female gamers as there are young male gamers. Developers better wake up to the fact that right now half their audience is female and in a few years it will be mostly female.
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I would say that the most indicative figure is that handhelds are still doing quite well which was the market that stood to lose the most.
Sure the audience that would buy a DS strictly for Bejeweled or Mahjonng is gone but the core audience remains strong.
On a side note I just bought me a Vita over the weekend and forgot that you need an expensive ass memory card to play anything. If there would be anything to kill that market it would be the market shooting itself on the foot than the competing market gaining ground. Oh well. Memory card is coming in and there are a crap ton of games I can't wait to play on my commutes. -
Put more pink, rainbows and unicorn in Candy Crush, check.
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