Research: Massive consumer belief in the PlayStation 3

[Nesh]

Price rules with the uninformed or unbiased consumer.

When I was young, I sure didn't really know or care about the difference between a collecovision and an atari. They both advertised, they both had great games. My parents bought me a 2600, and it was great. Would I have been upset if they had gone a different route? Nope.

Hmm.. how old was I at the time?, I was probably like 8-10 (don't remember if we got one the year it was released or not).

Are 13 year olds more biased than 10 year olds? Enough to have a sense of brand loyalty or really care about what they have compared to their friends?

I'm not so sure. Because even much later on, I remember we got a Genesis instead of whatever the latest Nintendo offering was (SNES?) to replace our aging Nintendo console and I was indifferent about getting one instead of the other. I didn't make that decision, my parents did. Presumably based upon price since they didn't play it. I was just happy to have a new game system that had better graphics and better games than the Nintendo I had been playing.

You have a point but times have changed. I was satisfied with my atari when people had a NES. I was also satisfied with my NES when everybody had a Genesis and SNES in my time but I dont think today kids feel the same way about consoles. Gaming industrty changed, grew and evolved and kids take their consoles more seriously.

Its surprising that kids today give more attention to what games they play, their console's graphics and other features. They dont just think "I want a console to play games for fun". They want a console to play game a, game b, game c, that has this thing, and does that etc etc.
Its crazy if you think about it.

Perhaps I may be wrong though since judging from handhelds more kids own a DS than a PSP but this could be due to the fact that they may not take that seriously handheld gaming. Handheld may be more like what gaming was in general in the 80s 90s

Also its the first time a console carrying such a popular brand name has such a big difference in price compared to its competitors and has so many advanced features that are unheard of on a gaming console and kids arent used to using them or may not care about them at all.

So perhaps parents may end up buying a 360 for their kids until PS3 gets cheap

 

[ninelven]

The average game player is 33 years old and has been playing games for 12 years.

Thirty-eight percent of all game players are women. In fact, women over the age of 18 represent a significantly greater portion of the game-playing population (30%) than boys age 17 or younger (23%).

The average age of the most frequent game buyer is 40 years old. In 2006, 93 percent of computer game buyers and 83 percent of console game buyers were over the age of 18.

In 2005, 25 percent of Americans over the age of 50 played video games, an increase from nine percent in 1999.

 

[Bigus Dickus]

Ah, I certainly knew the difference between Atari and ColecoVision, but we had both so that was easy.

I do remember friends that had the Intellivision though (what ever happened to that brand... what company was that?), and we didn't really argue over which was better but I was always glad to come back home to my comfortable Coleco.

 

[RancidLunchmeat]

The only times when one of my childhood friends had a different game system than I did, we both used to love going back and forth to each other's house to play the latest greatest game for that particular system.

We could play Mario or Zelda on Nintendo, and then play Cyberall on Sega.

But, this was before cross platform games, so it wasn't a matter of wanting to play Madden on the PS2 instead of the Xbox because I have the PS2 and am used to those controls while my friend has the Xbox and is used to those controls so the game isn't fun because whoever owns the system has an advantage.

Come to think of it.. most games back then seem to have been cooperative or turn-taking games, not competitive. So it didn't matter who owned the console in question, except maybe their "turn" lasted longer.

 

[Graham]

Um... So, this servey does not include those who are waiting for the inevitable 360 bundle deals/price cut this chirstmas? What about existing owners... How were they included
The emphasis on 'willing to pay full price for' could easily be misleading.

You cannot draw a conclusion of 'nearly everyone who wants a 360 already has one' from data the is presented like that. Sillyness.