14 DAY TRIAL // You're going to change your perspective on how many gamers are out there, after you read this. Apparently, a study conducted by The Diffusion Group shows that 80 percent of the 2000 console owners surveyed, are aware of their systems' capabilities - mainly, DVD playback. It seems that only 30 percent know they can do this with a gaming console, while 13 percent actually use this feature.
Here's the full scoop, as Gamasutra reports: "The new report, 'On the Use of Game Consoles for Movie Viewing', which surveyed 2000 U.S. homes, says that 74 percent of households rely solely on standalone DVD players for watching movies, while a quarter have gone online to purchase or rent digital movie downloads. [...] Looking more widely at the research results, the report found that approximately half of U.S. broadband households have at least one game console, with 15 percent owning more than one."
Now, get ready for the good part. As the same site informs, "...only 30 percent of DVD-capable console owners said that the console they owned even allowed for DVD playback, a fact, says Diffusion Group 'that demonstrates how poorly many consumers understand the capabilities of today's game consoles and a major barrier to persuading consumers to start using these platforms for non-gaming media consumption.'"
Of course, this shows something even more serious that I just can't help mentioning. Nintendo's success with the Wii and DS. Normally, gamers know what motion-sensitivity and touchscreen abilities are, but as many reports say, Nintendo's user base is packed full with non gamers as well, non gamers that heard of the "magical" Wiimote and wanted to try it out, because it sounded so out of this world. The reality is that many of them don't even know the first thing about gaming, which says a lot about the gaming industry in terms of who's winning and who's providing the better gameplay experience.
Then again, we can say the same about Sony's PS3 and its Blu beam of angelic light, which puts Sony in an even worse position. Honestly, how many PS3 purchasers do you think looked for the laser beam first thing after taking it out of the box?