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PC Remains an Online Gaming Leader
The PC continues to dominate all other gaming systems in terms of usage for online gaming, research firm NPD Group has found in the study, Online Gaming 2009.
NPD told Edge that among online gamers surveyed, 87 percent play PC games, down from 90 percent from a 2008 survey. It's still the most widely-used platform for online gaming, NPD said.
Of the 20K surveyed, 25 percent said they used a console for online gaming, up from 19 percent in 2008.
Xbox 360 led the console online gaming pack, with 50 percent of online gamers saying they use Microsoft's machine to play online. Online gaming usage on the Nintendo Wii increased from 18 percent in 2008 to 29 percent in 2009. PS2 dropped "dramatically," NPD said, while PS3 moved to third place on the usage chart, with 20 percent of online gamers saying they used the system to play online.
Microsoft's concerted effort to make online gaming a major component of its console strategy began when the company decided to include a standard ethernet connection in the original Xbox. The Xbox Live online gaming service launched in 2002. Nintendo has been slower to jump on the online bandwagon, but now offers online play and a storefront, while PS3 has the highly-touted Home virtual world and PlayStation Network.
NPD's study includes any kind of online gaming, not necessarily multiplayer online games, analyst Anita Frazier said. "...If I go on to Facebook and play a word game solo, that is online gaming," she said, which partly explains how the PC has been able to maintain its online gaming dominance.
NPD's study also found that the percentage of online gamers in the 13-17 age range increased from 17 to 22 percent this year. The percentage of 18-34-year-olds and 35-54-year-olds playing games online decreased slightly.
An NPD summary of the report states, "These shifts indicate that online gaming may have become more appealing to 13-17 year olds compared to last year, a theme that is echoed by the growth in teens using a console system for online gaming, and a relatively proportional decline among adults, especially ages 25-34, across several systems."
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Copyright 2006 - 2009 Future Publishing Limited, Beauford Court 30 Monmouth Street Bath, UK BA1 2BW
England and Wales company registration number 2008885
Makes the 17 million PSN member claim by Sony all the more unlikely. I think the Wii number includes people who buy WiiWare and Classic games from the service as "online" users - just like people who buy from XBLA and PSN are online users in this study. Still an embarrassing number for Sony as this explains why they are so reluctant to release concurrent users (to be fair, Nintendo hasn't released this data either - only MS has) and their number also includes people just browsing the web and getting news.
I don't think anyone is surprised that 360 owns the online console space with its superior features/community/standards, only the Nintendo number stands out at first glance. Yes, this is just the US, but other studies have shown that online gaming is far more prominent in the US than Japan or Europe, primarily due to the lower cost of entry (this obviously does not factor in MMORPG's in other parts of Asia).
....and of course this study is for the US not worldwide (you know thar part of the world that's outside of the US), lets remember that boys and girls.
They should have worked it out in an online users per console ratio. Maybe only 20% of gamers say they go online with the PS3 because the PS3 has the smallest installed base or is it that 20% of PS3 owners use their PS3 to go online? If they're just going by overall users than the console with the highest installed base gets a huge advantage (which would make the 360 being at 50% even that much more impressive). Either way, it's a bit embarrassing for the PS3 to only be at 20% being beaten out by the technologically inferior Wii with its very limited online multiplayer offerings (I'm aware Wii-ware and virtual console exist, I'm speaking of multiplayer specifically) and outdated multiplayer support (no headset, no freedom to choose a "name" among other things).
Those are valid concerns with how they did their study. They say they count doing anything online with the console, so getting weather on Wii counts as much as anything, even though it isn't a gaming activity. If you did apples to apples comparisons, the PC would likely be at 100% because who doesn't use their computer to go online?
Just reminds me of Twain's "lies, damn lies and statistics."
Brian
www.brianwoods.com
Gotta love that flight sim geek setup.