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A Third of Console Owners are Adults
A Reuters story points out something that's probably not much of a shock to readers here: almost a third of console owners are 'adults'. This, from a study done by Nielsen, indicates that 37% of adults who go online own a videogame console. 16% own a portable game console. These aren't basement-dwelling rejects, either. Most of these individuals are married, and a full 66 percent have a child. The article suggests the increasing sophistication of the systems, as well as their new role as media center components, has added to the cachet of the console. "Microsoft Corp. and Sony Corp. are positioning their Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 consoles as entertainment hubs for gaming, music and photo viewing amid a fierce battle for dominance in the $30 billion global video- game market."
Considering that most people under 18 didn't purchase the console.
A survey recently found that 100% of adults who go online breathe oxygen. Therefore, 100% of oxygen breathers are adults.
Don't blame me; I'm never given mod points.
Media center components? New role? Games are media. Consoles are components. The person who wrote the article is an asshat.
And in any case, that is a SERIOUSLY new role, unless you're talking about using them as a DVD player, and otherwise doesn't even bear mentioning - and isn't a new role either, considering how old the PS2 is now.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
I'm scratching my head over the two-thirds of console owners that _aren't_ adults - what kid can afford $150-$500 for a console? I suppose if you define "owner" to include "recipient of a gift paid for by someone else", I could see those numbers being fairly accurate. I know when I was a kid, it would have taken almost 6 months' worth of allowance to acquire even a previous-gen console (PS2, Gamecube, Xbox), not to mention games and accessories. Even when I had a "real job" in high school, by the time I got done paying for gas and car insurance, it would have taken a lot of saving to come up with a console.
illum oportet crescere me autem minui
If I buy my under-17-year-old kid a console, I still own it. So I'm surprised it's not closer to 95%.
Define 'adults'.
37% of adults who go online own a videogame console.
So shouldn't the headline read "A third of all adults own a console"?
"Is that dad? Either that or Batman's really let himself go."
Two thirds of console owners are not adults.
I bought it for my kid and I wouldn't know how to use it, but I technically own it! Does this make me part of the 37% that constitutes nearly a third of adults?
This article might have more relevance if it was discussing the "primary users", not "owners" of consoles.
One can be married with children and still be a basement-dwelling reject. You'd just be a basement-dwelling reject with more background noise.
Do adults that have bought consoles for their children not consider themselves as owners of a game console? Are the children the owners? If 66% of the adults that have a console also have a child, I submit that those 66% actually bought it for their child. So, I'd say only about 13% of adults are console *users* (at least exclusively in the household). Anyway IMO all such studies are total rubbish and seem to rely on bogus phrasing to make total BS seem plausible.
I like basketball!!1!
Another person probably beat me to this, but adults are the technical owners of the console since they bought it with their money. Unless a non-adult saved up enough allowance to buy one, it's usually the parent that buys the product.
Most likely, the survey meant that a third of console users are adults - which isn't suprising anyway since there's bound to be a game an adult likes on a console (even if most of them are cookie-cutter.) Even so, it's only a segment of the gaming demographics - there are some people that want to play puzzle games which are normally found on a PC (such as Freecell, Minesweeper, etc.)
But they also found that a third of these adults act like children online.
It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
100% of console owners are adults. Children have no legal right to own things.
Considering that a whole third of them don't have kids, I'd say it's fairly safe to say that at least in those households there must be an adult who's using the console. I mean, if you bought and own a console, and you don't have kids of your own, then it's probably not for the neighbour's kid, right? The neighbours might get a tad nervous if their kid was at an adult's house all the time ;)
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
Even tho that is not what the article says......
Someone thinks all the people dropping $250 bucks or more at a time on entertainment are kids?
Lies, damn lies and statistics
37% of ADULTS who go ONLINE have a console. That says little about how many kids vs adults have a console or even how many adults have one for that matter.
The article doesn't say "a third of console owners are adults." It says "a third of adults who go online own consoles."
Rewording sentence one: Of all console owners, almost one third are adults.
Rewording sentence two: Of all adults online, 37% of them own a console.
Scenario allowed by sentence one: 3 console owners, where one is an adult.
Scenario allowed by sentence two: 3 console owners, all of them owned by adults.
They are not equivalent.
Where are the editors?
The notion that the increased sophistication and "media center" uses of new consoles are driving factors in larger numbers of adults owning them is silly.
In no way is that silly. That's actually insightful. I'm one of those adult console owners who actually uses my PS2 (PS3 is coming this weekend) as part of my "media center". I use my PS2 for movies, music, AND games. That's part of the reason I would never buy a Wii (no DVD or audio CD playback at all) or an XBox (crappy DVD playback).
I don't respond to AC's.
'Scuse my french, but No Fucking Shit. I played video games when I was in elementary school, middle school and high school, and probably most of all college. Now that I have a real job and I can afford all the rockin' toys I always wanted as a kid but couldn't afford, why the fuck would I want to stop playing all of a sudden?
Hell, me and my buddies will drive in from out of state to hang out all weekend for events like superbowl sunday just to play games together like Gears of War (2 vs 2) till our eyes bleed. One of us set up a quake 1 server and we play rocket arena on our lunch breaks. We're not basement dwellers either; One is married (with plans for a kid), one is engaged, and the other two of us have live-in girlfriends.
moox. for a new generation.
So wait, all of us basement-dwelling rejects were not included in this detailed "study?"
It may not look like big news to you or me, but look at how many people act surprised that an adult can play video games even on Slashdot. People grew up with the notion that video games are for kids, and some just don't want to let go of that notion.
Plus, western culture -- and indeed any culture -- has certain age-roles that an upstanding member of society must fit. You're supposed to do something from age X to age Y, then something completely different between ages Y and Z, and then change your interests completely again at age Z. E.g., ou're supposed to grow up on, say, hopscotch and cowboys-and-indians, then suddenly shun them when you reach a certain age, just because you're told it would be soo unfashionable to be seen doing that as an adult. So basically it was kinda expected that video games would follow the same pattern: you'd play them until you're, say, 20 years old, then suddenly give up and pretend to be no longer interested in that kiddy stuff.
So in a sense, it _is_ news.
But probably more importantly, this is really PR.
Now PR isn't marketting. Marketting tells you stuff like "Buy Moraelin's cigarettes for the smooth taste." PR is more perverse. PR tries to masquerade as news, and undermine the very facts/preconceptions/whatever you may use in making that kind of a judgment. E.g., the PR for the same cigarettes would look more like "Scientist says that smoking is good for your health" or "Study says that 69% of the world's most successful people were smokers." Or maybe "Economist says that the new smoking tax will cause loss of jobs over the next 10 years."
Anyway, the short version is (A) it tries to masquerade as news, and (B) it tries to manipulate your opinions and brains in stealthy ways.
So what do we have here? Both MS and Sony are trying to expand the market for their consoles. Appealing to parents of little kids is good and fine, but it only takes you so far. What they want now is to have _everyone_ buy their consoles. If possible, hey, even if you have one for your kid already, please buy one for yourself too. Heck, buy a third as a DVD player.
Enter a PR bombardment telling everyone over and over again, basically, "hey, lots of adults play games. It's socially acceptable and accepted nowadays. Noone will look funny at you if you start playing video games in your 40's. Honest." It's true and logical too, as you've said, but then it will serve the PR role anyway. It doesn't have to be a lie to be good PR material, and in fact it's better if it's not an outright lie that someone can proceed to dismantle. At any rate, it will serve to erode the age-role conceptions just a little more, and maybe convince a few more people to go buy a game console already.
Mind you, I'm not saying that there's anything particularly evil or sinister about it. There are truly insidious PR jobs, but this is a benign one anyway. So I'm not saying anyone should form a mob with torches and pitchforks. Just that this is probably the reason why you're seeing this kind of story again and again and again. Just being true doesn't automatically make something be all over the news repeatedly. On the other hand, the PR agencies submitting various versions and incarnations of it again and again, might just do the trick.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
No, it does not say a third of all console owners are adults. It says 37% of all adults who are online have consoles.
Jesus Christ, the article is barely longer than the summary...you'd think you guys could actually parse the damn thing.
The cake is a pie
I bought the Wii, xBox, and GameCube. My son bought a PS2 and some of the older consoles himself.
We both use them - mostly the Wii nowadays, but sometimes the PS2 or xBox.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
My dad played with Howdy Doody dolls and Lone Ranger toy guns when he was a kid. He wasn't doing that when I was growing up.
When I was a kid I played with Gi-Joe and Transformers. I'm not doing that anymore.
The reason I own a PS3 isn't just for the games. The media center aspect of it was as much of a driving factor for purchasing it. Games and the consoles that play them are more sophisticated than the coleco vision I used to own as a kid, just like we are supposed to be.
but adults are the technical owners of the console since they bought it with their money.
I don't know about how it works with adult to child relationships where the adult is the guardian of the child. But your statement definitely isn't true about other situations. If one adult gives another adult a gift, then the recipient of the gift is now the owner of the item. For example, if you give someone a car one day just because you're happy then it becomes theirs. If a month later you decide you couldn't really afford to do that and go to court to try to get it back you'd be out of luck. The owner now is the person you gave it to (unless you can prove you were incompetent or tricked). No degifters in this society!
1) The title doesn't even match the text summary. 1/3 of console owners are adults vs. 1/3 of all adults online own a console. Big difference. I was trying to figure out how they could find out that the kid "owns" the console rather than their parents.
2) These aren't basement-dwelling rejects, either. Seriously, of all places, hasn't Slashdot moved way beyond this stereotype? I'd like to smack the person upside the head that wrote this. What next? Are you going to tell us women aren't dumb and should be allowed to vote? Thanks! It's 2007.
Support a great indie game: http://www.abaddon360.com
Using the stats given on the "Everybody Votes Channel" for the Wii, I've been able to go back and figure out the percentage of people using male and female avatars for voting on that. It turns out that about 75% of Wii users are male and 25% are female.
No breakdown by age though, but I think that's interesting in light of Nintendo's strategy of pulling in new gamers.
Pick one: A) You must be new here. B) It's slashdot, you should be used to this by now.
That depends on whether or not you can get judge judy to believe that it was a loan and not a gift. Many judges would be kind of skeptical when someone says they got a 2000 gift from a friend, and aren't giving the money back. If you took the person to court, said the gift was actually a loan, then you may actually get something back out or the situation.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
I buy video game consoles (and handhelds) to play video games.
I bought (built) a media center to use as a media center.
Intriguing, eh?
Who needs accuracy? All you have to be is the first to "break" the story; thought be damned.
I thought the reduction of things to sound-bites was bad.
Now everything is headlines with no content.
Its like the "pass the sentence around the circle" game in kindergarten.
C) CowboyNeal made me do it.
Sure but you'd be lying and trying to get around the law that I was pointing out exists.
Heck I had a LOT more money in my pocket/the bank when I was a kid and didn't have to do things like pay bills.
... I brought cheap clothes rather than wear the latest fashions, etc.
:(
When I was a kid I got allowance and made money doing extra chores (and/or my brother would pay me to do HIS chores), things online, typing up things for people, and fixing people's computers... also I would loan money to people and charge interest. And I'd start saving what I estimated the price would be (+ enough for a few games) as soon as I heard a new console was being developed, so by the time a console came out I'd usually had the money for it set aside well in advance.
But then again games were pretty much ALL I spent my money on. I didn't (and still don't) like doing things such as going to the movies, buying junk food, etc.
When I got a job and moved out of my parents' house, and therefore started paying rent and bills, I could afford a lot less games