14 DAY TRIAL // For some time social gaming, done on social networks like Facebook and now Google+ but also on specialized sites, has been seen as a growth segment of the gaming industry but a new study suggests that this increase in audience comes at the expense of home consoles like the Xbox 360, the PlayStation 3 and the Nintendo Wii.
A new survey of 1,400 respondents has shown that most of them, close to 70 percent also have access to home consoles on which to play and that a third of those who do are spending less time with their main gaming device because of diversions that are found in the social gaming space.
Close to a quarter of all those who answered questions said that because of time spent playing online, usually in free-to-play titles, they spent less money on core games.
22% of those who were surveyed, who identified themselves as social gamers, paid more than 100 dollars (about 72 Euros) on core games during the last year and close to 50 percent paid more than 50 dollars.(about 36 Euros).
The social gaming crowd also revealed its favorite consoles, with 31 percent of those surveyed playing the Nintendo Wii during the last year, the Xbox 360 coming second with 19% and the PlayStation 3 in third place with just 15 percent.
The view of most of the gaming industry, up until now, was that the audiences for hardcore home console titles and those for social games were widely separate and that a spending increase in one area would not decrease the money spent on the other one.
Big companies like Electronic Arts have already began preparing themselves for the post console future, launching Facebook versions of such popular titles like FIFA, The Sims and Dragon Age.
It might not be long before Activision launched a Facebook version of Call of Duty.