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Online Gaming Habits Surveyed
Thanks to Business Wire/TMCNet for its press release summarizing the details of a new NPD survey about online gaming. It's noted that "the overwhelming majority of today's 13-to-44-year-old gamers have the ability to play games online and a good portion are taking advantage of it, but it's dominated by one platform - the PC." Other statistics include online console demographics ("PlayStation 2 and Xbox skew heavily male, with approximately 88 percent being male and 12 percent being female") and the mobile gaming market ("Roughly 10 percent of those who said they play online are strictly mobile-based gamers and do not use any of the three online-capable systems.")
chances are if you are emailing the survey the person has a PC and has gamed on it online.
this is a flawed approach.
u need to find people without a pc (no email) and find out if they play online with a console.
no wonder PC won.
The interesting thing is the categories -- that "mobile gamer" (cellphone gaming) is now prevalent enough to be a category is news.
Not really news that all the geeky gadget/console-gamers are men though.
I wonder where they got their list of survey candidates as well... the article does mention that there was an "over-sampling of males".
Scientists have discovered that water is wet. More on this as it develops.
Rob
Does this mean 1 time online? 2,3,4 or what?
I used to play FPS games (Half-life mods) and Diablo 2 online alot, but in the last 6 months I've lost the urge to play any more. Does this mean I'm an online gamer or not?
I play my GBA more then anything these days (pokemon is to blame..), but I have played online. Do I get stuck with the "played online" group, or with the "I dont" group?
I'm neither yes or no, I'm more "meh"
I like muppets.
We see that studies find donuts round. Slashdot remarks about users with flat donuts not being considered by insensitive clods covered in hot grits pre-filtered.
I think it is a joke that people using xbox live and console based online games must pay such high fees for using such facilities. Not only do people have to pay for broadband which is expensive enough (at least in Australia), but also to pay the ridiculous fees which line the pocket of fatcat businessmen. At least with PC online games generally it is free to play. I know one thing i'm not asking Santa for this year. Also haven't we learned that connecting anything made from microsoft to the internet is a disaster waiting to happen al-la Windows 98 article
PlayStation 2 and Xbox skew heavily male, with approximately 88 percent being male and 12 percent being female
In other news, a study shows that 12% of video game players are habitual liars.
According to surveys done on online services such as Battle.net or Xbox Live, 99% of users are "ghey".
I'm sick of watching or reading reviews for games and seeing that they took a big hit in the score for not having online play. When did online play become the deciding factor for console games, when the majority of console owners either can't use it, or don't want to? Fuck, I mean Mario Kart DD was marked down on that mindfuck G4 show because the one guy said that it had poor multiplayer. WTF, he thinks that online play is it when it comes to multiplayer.
Online play in the consoles has not yet reached the level of affordability and ease of use as the PC enjoys, so it's not time yet to be comparing the two in terms of popularity.
If you build it, nerds will come. Soylentnews.org
On the most dominant console, Sony charges $40 for an online adapter. Do they realize that if the price of the console drops to $99, then the adapter is almost half the console. Imagine buying a PC with a network adapter valuing at 40% of the cost?! No wonder online gaming still hasn't moved.
Rerun the survey, or better still just ask EA, for thier stats.
they are the tricycles of gaming.
i am not understanding why more people aren't into online console gaming. most of the games have built-in voice options and you don't have to worry about upgrading and setting up video cards and voice servers and ram requirements. you just turn the game on and go.
... i have only played ffxi with this and i have been loving it (i prefer the ps2 verison to the pc version ... see below). still play it at times. no voice though and i hate using a keyboard for talking. i want to play outbreak online ... but the communication for that is horrible. i hear socom is awesome.
... its fun. when you have your pc tuned to perfection and tweaked for goodness it is fun. but you are sitting in front of a computer which, to me, is a tool of work more than one of play. and i can't seem to get past that. ffxi is great multiplayer on the pc ... but it is still on the pc and played in the work position. i can't have that.
xbox live is a wonderful service. although, i would have to say you do get quite a lot of dregs when you play with strangers. make a friends list and keep them close.
ps2
pc online
Visit the Mother Site !
The average online game time played was 6.1 hours per week, but the average offline time was 5 - thus totalling 11.1 hours per week.
I guess I shouldn't be surprised that the average is that high - I would like to know the median (and the standard deviation of the mean...) because I imagine a few young people playing huge hours drive up the average significantly (don't forget, the survay was done in June when many young students are on summer vacation and thus have more time to devote to gaming).
Actually, re-reading carefully, only 90% of respondants have an online capable system (including PC) and only 60% of them actually play online at all. Thus the 5 hours per week average offline gaming must reflect the habits of the 44% of the respondants who said they do no online gaming at all.
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a war on terrorism? How can we end a war on a method?
because of the simple reason that their purposely being limited by their manufacturers in order to achieve consumer lock in & price fixing to profit from. (Thus forcing everyone to buy only so & so's branded cr@p at whatever prices they choose to initially set...)
Since Pc's don't have only one manufacturer making part XYZ, there's more competitiveness in cost & features. Both of which practically guarantee's their dominance. Why?
Because this allows for a lot more configurability for user choices and preferences!
To give a more specific personal example - I generally don't like gaming on consoles because their "one-size-fits-all" mentality sucks big time... Either the controllers are too small for my larger hands or setup for the wrong handedness, the video is too dark for my bad eyesight, or a lack of configurability with the controls, etc.
[Now, I'm off to lift my le... Um, visit... at another place.]