14 DAY TRIAL // The title of a piece up on the games section from Yahoo.com reads "Less than half of DS owners know it has a touchscreen!" While the title could just as well say, "Less than half of DS owners don't have a clue as to what it really does", we all get the point - half of the DS users/owners are non gamers. I'm being purely speculative here but, could it be the same with the Wii's userbase?
According to the respective article, "A fascinating new US study has revealed that nearly half of consumers who buy a Nintendo DS realise that it has two screens and that one of those is a touchscreen." But hey, the DS is small and mysterious. It can confuse a lot of people with its few buttons and truckload of features. Think about it: out of all the grandpa DS owners, how many do you reckon that play with their next-door neighbor via Wi-Fi?
But to my surprise, it's almost the same for PS3 and Xbox 360 owners. You'd think that anyone in their right mind getting a $600 piece of gaming hardware (PS3) knew what it does... Check this out:
"The report, titled 'NextGen Functionality and Usage' investigates how educated buyers are regarding the features of videogame consoles that they purchase," the piece reads on. "The study revealed that, while PlayStation 3 owners download additional content as often as Xbox 360 owners, the majority are unaware that it's even possible."
Basically, statistics showed that "71% of PS3 users consider backward compatibility with PlayStation 2 games was the 'most important PS3 function' but that only 31% are aware that it exists," and "while 52% of PSP owners know that they can watch movies on the machine, only 49% know they can listen to MP3s while only 43% think that it's possible to view photographs."
"This study verifies what many of us already know: features related to playing games are by far the most important to consumers of video game systems," said Anita Frazier, industry analyst from The NPD Group who carried out the survey.
There's... nothing more to add, except that it's sad.