PC Is Gaming Machine Of Choice - 25.2.06

The Xbox 360 and other consoles may be in high-demand, but a new study out shows that the PC is the platform of choice for gamers.

Released by research firm Forrester’s the report, “North American Video Gaming: Surviving a Midlife Slowdown,” says that PC gaming is not declining and in fact is expected to rise. The study was conducted using a mail survey of more than 10,000 homes in the U.S. and Canada.

The numbers look pretty good, but the question remains if this will translate into game title sales.

According to the survey, 39% of all households use PCs for playing video games - this group makes up the vast majority of the 48% of households that have any sort of video games hardware. For comparison: 30% of households in Canada and 37% of households in the U.S. have some form of console based game hardware. The reason that PC gaming is more prevalent is probably due to the multi-tasking nature of personal computers. If it's there (for whatever reason: word processing, doing the taxes), why not use it for playing games as well?
Joystiq

The downside for gaming that came out of the study was that 53 percent of all households with PCs actually play games on them. That means there’s a huge chunk of the market not playing something, not buying titles and no visiting online gaming sites.

Despite the somewhat troubling figure, online gaming came out looking pretty strong on the PC platform. The study showed that about 60 percent of PC gamers do play games online and 82 percent like to check out free online games. But with online games such as World of Warcraft touting subscription bases in the millions, it’s a fair guess the MMO genre also helps bolster that 60 percent figure.

The challenge for developers will be to reel the PC owning, non-gaming segment in with titles that appeal to them. What kinds of games do you think developers should be pursuing to entice non-gamers to fire up their PCs for recreation? Is it even possible to get these folks to play something, anything? Let us know what you think by heading to the forums.

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