James Delahunty
17 Dec 2010 1:08
Nielsen has released the results of a study into how young teenagers use their gaming consoles as more and more features are added to them.
The survey was conducted on a general U.S. population sample of an unspecified size. It found, for example, that 13 year old PlayStation 3 (PS3) owners spend an average of 49 percent of the time using the device to play video games. It found that 27 percent of the time was spent watching DVD or Blu-ray movies and 13 percent of the time watching movies downloaded and streamed.
Users of the Xbox 360 console spent about 62 percent of the time gaming, 11 percent watching DVD movies and 16 percent watching downloaded/streaming content. Wii users spent 69 percent of the time gaming and 20 percent of the time using the Netflix feature.
On the Xbox 360, respondents spent 34 percent of the usage time gaming offline and 28 percent gaming online. The disparity was a wider for the PS3, with 30 percent of usage time spent gaming offline and 19 percent gaming online. The disparity was much wider with the Wii console with 57 percent of the time using the system dedicated to offline gameplay and just 12 percent to online gameplay.
While the percentage of time spent gaming on the Wii as opposed to other activities with the device is larger than its competitors, respondents only reported using the device about 1.4 hours per week on average, quite a bit behind 4.1 hours per week for the PS3 and 4.9 hours for the Xbox 360.
While the survey appears to be quite limited, its intention is instead to highlight how games consoles are increasingly taking up the role of home entertainment hubs as new updates add new functionality.