NPD shared some interesting results from a recent study, finding that mobile games continue to increase in popularity with children, but consoles and PC games remain hugely popular, with a big overlap between both.
NPD got these results from an online survey held June to July early this year. They surveyed a representative sample of female adults ages 21 to 60 who have children ages 2 to 17 in their household. Where households had more than one child, they got the older child to do the survey, while very young children were represented by adults. They surveyed almost 4,000 children, ages 2 to 17, who play video games.
67 % of the children surveyed still play console and PC games, and 64 % of them are playing on mobile. NPD also finds that children are playing on mobile longer, up seven hours a week now compared to five hours in 2011, and are getting started earlier, on average getting their first device as early as eight years old.
NPD’s research was more focused in learning more about mobile gaming, but it is interesting that it ends up affirming the popularity of consoles and PCs. There is a lot of talk from NPD about how children are embracing change and shifting to mobile, but it appears more like there is still very much a place for ‘traditional’ gaming on consoles and PCs.
Personally, I feel all this talk about mobile gaming ignores how smartphones and tablets have been demonstrated to be incapable of really replicating the home console experience, and of fully translating certain types of games. Anyway, don't expect talk about mobile gaming threatening consoles to end anytime soon.
Image source
Source: VG24/7
