Nielsen Releases “State of the Video Gamer” Report, Women Now Largest Group of PC Gamers

Nielsen Games released its fourth quarter report “The State of the Video Gamer”, which highlights consumer demographics and behavior in the video game market.  The key takeaways from the report:

  • More sophisticated consoles such as the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 attract the more engaged console users, who are less likely to be watching television in Prime Time than users of other consoles.
  • The PlayStation 2, while still leading all other consoles in total minutes of usage, continues to have the highest downward trending rate of usage. Trending data suggests by the end of 2009, the PlayStation 2 will no longer be the most used console in the United States.
  • Females 25 years of age and older make up the largest block of PC game players accounting for 46.2 percent of all players and 54.6 percent of all game play minutes in December 2008.
  • The most played games on the PC are card games from Microsoft, with the most played game being Solitaire with over 17 million players for the month of December 2008. 
  • Females 55+ over index in terms of their PC game play versus all other demographic groups.

To download the entire report, visit http://blog.nielsen.com/nielsenwire/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/stateofvgamer_040609_fnl1.pdf