Seventh generation consoles – PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and Wii, have beat PCs by just a point – 34 vs. 33 percent of the gaming time, even with the consoles reporting a drop by 4 percent from 37 percent in 2012, claims a new report.
PC games also dipped sharply to 33 from 39 percent recorded in 2012, while handheld devices have retained the same 6 percent for the last 2 years.
Nielsen 360 Gaming Report reveals that gamers aged 13 and above spend more than 6 hours weekly playing video games, up by 12 percent from 5.6 hours weekly in 2012.
Nielsen director Nicole Pike added: “With these 8th generation consoles still in their infancy, in addition to up-and-coming platforms such as microconsoles and cloud gaming gaining momentum, gaming time is poised to continue evolving moving forward.”
Mobile and Tablet gaming have reportedly snatched a big chunk out of PC games sector, with an increase to 19 percent of the total time spent gaming, from 9 percent in 2011. Tablet gaming has more than doubled from 4 percent in 2012 to 9 percent of the total weekly gaming time, while smartphones had a slight increase by just 1 percent to 10 percent.
In a survey of around 2,000 consumers in the US, Nielson found that over 50 percent of the people also play mobile games, up from 46 percent in 2012. The time spent for gaming on any platform has increased to 6.3 hours from 5.6 hours in 2012, with 2 out of 3 Americans (64 percent) playing games on some device, a figure said to be stable since 2010.
