Category: Gaming

First things first – this is not a study from an established market research firm. Independent review site, NoFussReviews conducted a survey of over 500,000 game console owners to look into the failure rate of their consoles. Here are some interesting revelations

Percentage consoles that were repaired or replaced
XBox 360 : 42%
PS3 : 8%
Wii : <1% Percentage consoles repaired replaced more than once (among those who answered Yes) XBox 360 : 55% PS3 : 12% Wii : 0% Repaired more than two times XBox 360 : 39% PS3 : 8% Wii : 0% Repaired more than five times Xbox 360 : 3% PS3 : 1% Wii : 0%

Comscore has published its results on a recent study conducted to look into the mobile gaming market in the US. The study reveals that the number of mobile gamers has fallen by 13% in the past one year majorly contributed by the 35% decline among feature phones which account for 80% of the mobile gaming market. Here are insights into the smartphone mobile gaming market

Number of mobile gamers (at least once a month) : 21.395 million

Gaming Format
Downloaded games : 27.7% of mobile subscribers
Native/Pre loaded games : 25.0%
Browser based games : 5.1%

Number of games Installed Per Handset
At least 1 : 27.3% of mobile subscribers
1 – 2 : 9.0%
3 – 5 : 9.0%
6+ : 9.4%

Internet connected gaming is slowly becoming the norm. You may recall a recent study which pointed out that close to 85% of online gamers preferred their PC and only between 30%-40% of online gamers preferred the consoles. It then comes as no surprise that connecting the gamers via broadband is becoming extremely important to enhance the gamer experience.

A recent study conducted by the Diffusion group looked into the number of broadband connected gaming consoles in the market. Here are the results among the various popular platforms

Sony PlayStation PS3 : 78%
Microsoft Xbox 360 : 73%
Nintendo Wii : 54%

Facebook gaming is one of the most popular pastimes of late and close to 70 million users (of the total 400 million Facebook users) play just one game – Farmville. This explains the scope of this market. Monetization is not proving to be very difficult too with multiple avenues to sell virtual goods and services.

According to a study by developerAnalytics, the top 10 game developers on Facebook have a cumulative monthly active user base of 458.3 million (user overlapping included). Here is the list of these game developers, the Monthly active user numbers.

1. Zynga : 237.1 million
2. Electronic Arts : 53.3 million
3. CrowdStar : 49.2 million
4. Playdom : 37.1 million
5. Rock You : 23.0 million
6. Mindjolt Games : 21.4 million
7. Pop Cap Games : 10.7 million
8. SlashKey : 9.6 million
9. Country Life : 9.3 million
10. Meteor Games : 7.6 million

In a study published late last year, Analysys International projected the revenues from the Chinese gaming industry to be around $3.8 billion in 2009 and growing up to $10.7 billion by 2012. However, these appear to be painting a much rosier picture than what could actually be.

In its recent publication, Niko Partners claims that the gaming industry in China only brought in $3.57 billion in 2009. The firm had projected a revenue of $3.65 billion for this year. Here are the projections made by Niko partners

2010 : $4.5 billion
2014 : $9.2 billion ( CAGR of 20.9% )

Number of gamers
2009 : 68 million
2014 : 141 million (CAGR of 15.5%)

Here are other interesting stats from the report

88% of the respondents claimed to have played casual web games on Social Networking sites

65% of the gamers partly use internet cafes

If you need any proof to underline the fact that the Apple App Store is proving to be a serious threat to the video gaming market as we know it, it is here. A recent study conducted by NPD group shows a 14 percentage point increase in the revenues made by Apple in the portable gaming software market. Here are some interesting numbers (The numbers are for 2009 and corresponding 2008 numbers are given in brackets)

US Video Game Software Market By Revenue
Console : 71% (79% in 2008)
Portable : 24% (20%)
iPhone OS : 5% (1%)

US Portable Game Software Market By Revenue
Nintendo DS : 70% (75% in 2008)
Playstation Portable : 11% (20%)
iPhone OS : 19% (5%)

USA is without doubt the leader when it comes to revenues made from Massively Multiplayer Online games like World of Warcraft and Runescape. In a new study by GamesIndustry in association with TNS, here is the revenues made from MMO games by the following countries for the year 2009

1. USA : $3.8 billion
2. UK : $270 million
3. Germany : $250 million
4. France : $220 million
5. Belgium : $55 million
6. Netherlands : $65 million

Close to 40% of revenues on an average is from monthly subscriptions.

The PC Gaming Alliance (PCGA) recently unveiled their report that studied the growth in PC Gaming revenues over the past one year. Here are some interesting numbers revealed by the study

Global revenue from PC Gaming for 2009 : $13.1 billion (3% up from 2008)

• 70% of gamers from North America and Europe purchased a full game online
• 50% of the gamers from these regions also purchased a virtual good
• Less than 20% of total revenue is now from retail boxed sale of PC games
• Average revenue fall from 2008 in North America and Europe : 10%-15%

According to a study by Strategy Analytics, The video game market worldwide has grown by over 50% in the period 2005-2010 thanks to the popularity of console games like the Wii and PS3. However, it is believed that Wii has already peaked in sales and will decline post 2011. This makes PS3 the most likely contender to be the leading game console in the long run with Xbox likely to follow second. The lifetime sale of Wii is expected to be 103 million units while that for PS3 is forecast to be 127 million units.

Global video game software market
2005 : $30.3 billion
2009 : $46.5 billion
2010 : $47.5 billion (estd.)

The PC is without doubt the most used gaming platform for online games. However, a recent study by NPD Group reveals that gaming consoles have been contributing to a steady growth in time spent on online gaming.

Here are the top online gaming platform and the percent of online gamers who use them

PC : 85%
Xbox 360 : 48%
PS3 : 30%
Wii : 30%

It is remarkable in the way PS3 has grown in the past year. Nintendo Wii ranked higher than PS3 by 8 percentage points in a similar study conducted last year.