LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Men spend more money on video games than they do on music, research group Nielsen Entertainment said on Thursday, lending credence to a growing belief that video games are displacing other forms of media for the attention of young men.
And video gaming in general is starting to attract an older audience, with nearly a quarter of all gamers over age 40, the agency also said.
The interactive unit of Nielsen Entertainment conducted a random survey of 1,500 people in January and February for its report. Nielsen Entertainment, a unit of VNU NV (VNUN.AS) of the Netherlands, is best known for its benchmark SoundScan music sales service. Its corporate sibling Nielsen Media Research is the standard for TV ratings.
For males, Nielsen said, games now rank only behind DVDs as a purchase category, ahead of CDs, digital MP3 files and other ways of buying music. Nielsen also found that African-Americans and Hispanics spend more money on games each month than Caucasians.
Advertisers are quickly embracing video games as a better way to get to young men than the more traditional medium of television. Many games now have ads inside them, such as billboards in race games, and Nielsen is working on a method to measure audience response to the in-game ads.
Nielsen found 40 percent of U.S. households have some kind of system dedicated to game play, whether a gaming PC, a console or a handheld device. Among gamers, 23 percent own all three types of systems.
Among people who own at least one of the major consoles --Sony Corp.'s (6758.T) PlayStation 2, Microsoft Corp.'s (Nasdaq:MSFT - news) Xbox and Nintendo Co. Ltd.'s (7974.OS) GameCube -- 8 percent said they owned all three.
Nielsen also examined the amount of time spent playing alone versus socially and found that 79 percent of men and 79 percent of women over the age of 45 spend most of their time playing alone. Teen-age women tended to play more socially, Nielsen said, while women 25-54 are roughly split between playing alone and with others.
Overall, the firm said, active gamers tend to spend just over 5 hours a week playing alone and 3 hours a week playing with people or online.
The U.S. video game industry has $10 billion in annual revenue, roughly the same as U.S. box office sales.
Joined: Wed Mar 02, 2005 3:43 am Posts: 18418 Location: Anytown, USA Gender: Male
sorry, not here. i gave up with playstation 1. my girlfriend has a gamecube though, but i've yet to play it.
i have a shitload of ps1 and n64 games....make me an offer?
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stip wrote:
In five years, when you get laid and grow up, you should go back and read some of these posts and if you've turned into a decent person you'll realize how much of an asshole you sound like right now
Joined: Sun Oct 17, 2004 1:42 am Posts: 11014 Location: Mizzou Gender: Male
I used to be pretty into video games and moderately into music but this has flip flopped. I guess I don't have the desire to play too many games any more. I still enjoy playing them but I don't look forward to it.
_________________ "Red rover, red rover, let Mike McCready take over."
Joined: Sat Oct 16, 2004 10:52 pm Posts: 1727 Location: Earth Gender: Male
Video games cost 3-5 times more then a CD, on top of the already mentioned fact that music can be acquired online for nothing, while that isn't the case, as easily for video games be it PS2 or XBox.
_________________ "The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum." -Noam Chomsky
Joined: Mon Oct 18, 2004 10:50 am Posts: 138 Location: Hazel Park, MI
I definitely spend a lot more on video games than I do music. This isn't anything new to me though, since I've always been this way. Gaming has been my first love as an entertainment source since I was a little kid in the 80's. The technology isn't as limited as it once was, and so many things are possible now. That's brought many people of all ages into the gaming community. Music and movies has always been able to reach people on an emotional level, and games are starting to become the same way.
Video games were fun, but not a lot of fun, when I was 10. I haven't played them in a long time...this probably explains why when I'm outside playing beans or catch, or going for bike rides my fiance, friends and I are the only people I see.
Joined: Sat Oct 23, 2004 1:51 pm Posts: 4329 Location: PA
McParadigm wrote:
Video games were fun, but not a lot of fun, when I was 10. I haven't played them in a long time...this probably explains why when I'm outside playing beans or catch, or going for bike rides my fiance, friends and I are the only people I see.
I think the reason why you only see your friends and your fiance is because you play with beans. Word travels fast.
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emanon wrote:
I think I either need to drink less to become more alert, or more so as not to care.
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