Random Noise

Nielsen says: Consoles are Popular

Today Nielsen released a report on the recent rise in console gaming. Their findings, titled “The State of the Console“, list the key takeaways:

• The console household universe has grown 18.5% since fourth quarter 2004, compared to a 1.6% growth in the total universe of television households.
• Two-thirds of all Men aged 18-34 have access to a video game console in their home.
• The universe of connected console households (households subscribing to a service to connect their console to the internet) has grown to more then 4.4 million households, even before the
  newest Playstation 3 and Wii consoles are considered.
• In the NTI (Nielsen Television Index) fourth quarter of 2006 (9/18/06-12/31/06), 93.8 million US Persons aged two and older used a video game console for at least one minute.
• In any given minute, approximately 1.6 million US Persons aged two and older are using a video game console.
• The heaviest console users accounted for 74.4% of all console usage and averaged 345 minutes (5 hours and 45 minutes) of usage per usage day during the fourth quarter of 2006.

These are certainly important findings, but what do they mean for in-game advertisers? Well, let’s look a bit deeper. On the demographic side, console gaming is a very powerful way to reach the elusive young male demographic. 66% of all Men 18-34 have access a console. 80% of all Men and Women 12-17 have access to a console. This bolsters earlier estimates of similarly high penetration levels.

But what about connected units? - Being online is a key requirement for many in-game advertisers… Well, this is growing as well. In Q4 2003, there were 2.5 million households subscribed to a service to connect their consoles to the internet (10.6% of those who owned a connectable system). Today 4.4 million households are connected (16% of those who own a connectable system). The important factoid here is that an increasing percentage of connectable systems are actually connecting. This is good news, users are seeing the benefits of connecting their consoles and as a result are expanding the reach of in-game ads.

Other interesting observations:

• When comparing when gamers play against when people watch TV, we find that TV watching tends to take place earlier in the evening. TV watching peaks around 9 PM, gaming peaks around 10 PM.
• TV watchers tune in en-masse during primetime hours (notice the pronounced spike in TV watchers on page 6 of the report). By contrast, gamers spread out their gaming, slowly ramping up over the afternoon. I can only presume that as the gaming experience improves, these users will not bother to switch over to TV as primetime hits.
• So who plays games? The same people that watch Nicktoons, Adult Swim, Toon Disney, Cartoon Network, Noggin, Nickelodeon, etc… Some surprising results: G4 trails VH1 Classic and Spike trails the Animal channel… Who would have thunk it?

Nielsen says this is the first paper in a series on the video game industry. I can’t wait to see what’s next.

Reading:

• The State of the Console [pdf]