Microsoft Xbox 360 and Sony PS3 owners are not rushing to embrace the digital download revolution, according to a new study by NPD. Instead, gamers still appear to prefer getting a boxed copy of a game.
Less than 20 per cent of Microsoft Xbox 360 Xbox Live Gold members regularly download games from Xbox Live Arcade. Xbox Live Gold members have to pay an annual subscription to pay for access to multi-player servers etc. Just over half of all Microsoft Xbox 360 owners last year were Xbox Live Gold members.
While Sony PS3 owners do not have to pay for access to the PlayStation Network online service, only 10 per cent of all Sony PS3 owners pay for content regularly from Sony’s PlayStation Network Store.
Outspoken Wedbush Morgan analyst Michael Pachter estimates digital downloads will represent a mere two per cent of games sold this year. Although that will double for the next few years. “Downloads will become 20 per cent of the market within five years, and probably peak at around 50 per cent of the overall market in 10 years” Pachter told Reuters.
While both the Sony PS3 and Microsoft Xbox 360 are touted as broadband-connected multimedia machines (now with added Facebook, Twitter and last.fm), this survey and other market research data makes it clear that most gamers are still using their consoles largely simply to put in game discs and play them.
Hmm, I don’t believe these numbers one bit.
All the numbers (and anecdotal evidence points otherwise).
Patcher is saying 1 in 5 Xbox owners download. Look at the 360 active userbase of about 25m consoles (taking into account RROD numbers of sales), and that means that GTA IV Lost And Damned sold to 50% of the Xbox downloading userbase. Considering I don’t know a single Xbox owner that bought it, means someone is lying..
I also don’t know of a single PS3 owner that does not download from PSN, 100% coverage in my sample of about 20 or so owners here at work.
Is patcher talking only about FULL Priced Boxed games for download (ie games that are available in retail and online)? As clearly Microsoft don’t have ANY titles yet, and PSN only has about 7 or so (Warhawk, GT5:P, Siren Blood Curse, Burnout Paradise + some others I forget).
MM
a) It’s NPD – a widely-respected sales monitoring and research organisation you’re doubting, not Pachter.
b) You’re then taking your group of mates as a far more representative sample of worldwide gamers than NPD?
c) NPD do not appear to be talking about boxed content, but all paid-for content.
You realise what the N stands for in NPD?
It’s not worldwide….
MM: NPD no longer stands for anything. The group is a global market research organisation.
As for how representative their data is, I don’t know. But I suspect they probably used a sample data set of more than 20 people working in the same office.
Errm, it’s North American data only…
http://www.npd.com/corpServlet?nextpage=consumer-technology-categories_s.html
Look at the countries covered…
Canada
Mexico
U.S.
I don’t like downloading games on xbox, if I buy a game from a store and clock the game I can part exchange it against a new game, what option do you have once you download a game?
MM: I think if you looked a bit harder on the link you posted you would have found this http://www.npd.com/corpServlet?nextpage=entertainment-categories_s.html
Which clearly states a lot more countries than just north America.