John Broady, CNET Networks' director of business intelligence, looked at trends in the online console gaming market, which is set to kick off in earnest this month, as for the first time, the market offers three consoles that can connect to broadband and a multitude of online features.

[NOTE: To download and view Broady's PowerPoint presentation click here.]

• The next generation of connected consoles will attract an estimated 24 million households by 2011
  

– NPD Group

Broady's own first online console gaming experience was on Xbox Live with his Xbox 360. The penetration of online-enabled games for the 360 points to a great potential draw for online gaming.

• 77% of Xbox 360 titles sold through August were online-enable.
  

• Every Top 25 Xbox 360 title is online-enabled, with over 9 million units sold
  

– NPD Group

Despite game sales, Broady cited a Jupiter Research survey that found just 6% of respondents said that they are interested in online gaming. Still, he expects the number of online console gamers to grow.

• There are 12 massively multiplayer online game titles with over 100,000 subscribers
  

• Three titles claim over a million: "Lineage," "Ultima Online” and "World of Warcraft"
  

– DFC Intelligence

However, the graph for interest in "World of Warcraft" was a Himalayan mountain range, with densely packed spikes that have continued to occur regularly since the game was released in November 2004.

Next to present was Mike Vorhaus, managing director at Frank N. Magid Associates, a firm with over 50 years experience in covering TV; magazines; radio; and the Internet since 1995 – when clients included AOL and Excite; interactive TV; and mobile games.

[NOTE: To download and view Vorhaus' PowerPoint presentation click here.]

• Video games are now truly a mass media
  

• 55% of Americans aged 12-64 play some kind of game weekly (console, handheld, PC, free Web-based or mobile games)
  

• Over three-quarters of Americans (77%) own a wireless device
  

– Frank N. Magid Associates

When U.S. wireless users were asked what features they were interested in on their phones, text messaging (39%) beat out games (17%), but when limited to the lucrative demographic of 12-17 year old boys, 37% are interested in mobile games.

Nearly half (45%) of wireless device owners have played some type of game on the device. Most often, these were games that came pre-loaded on their cell phones; the number who had played a game they had to pay for is considerably smaller, but Vorhaus pointed out that there was still broad gamer penetration across all demographics. Right now, he says mobile games are more or less the "last resort" for gamers, who might be in a situation where there's no access to a PC, console or handheld device. As with most other platforms, the highest weekly mobile game play rates are among 12-17 year old males.

Michael Dowling, the chief executive of media research firm Interpret, next presented data from a June 2006 online survey of 2,000 Americans, adjusted to 2004 Census data for 13-54 year olds, and backed up with a random phone survey.

• 60% of 13-54 year-olds had played a video game in the past month, second only to the 70% who had watched TV, and greater than moviegoers, at 50%, or DVD renters, at 53%
  

• 75% of 13-24 year-olds, and 73% of 25-39 year-olds had played a game in the past month
  

– Interpret LLC

Microsoft was probably not happy to hear projections from Dowling's firm on the next generation of consoles. The company's Xbox 360 has already been on the market for nearly a year and has shipped 6 million units. Both Sony's PlayStation 3 and Nintendo's Wii consoles are set for release within weeks.

Interpret's survey found that, when asked if respondents would buy one of the new consoles for the full price, or ever – assumingly when the price tags on the new cycle of consoles inevitably drop in the next year – only 800,000 were interested in purchasing an Xbox 360 at the current price. Dowling inferred that many of those who had eagerly anticipated buying an Xbox 360 may have already done so, a factor not taken into consideration for the survey. But 5.7 million consumers are interested in a Nintendo Wii at full price, while 8.9 million showed interest in buying a PlayStation 3 at full price.

The next question asked if respondents would "ever" buy one of the three options. Thirty-six million are projected to end up getting a PS3, compared with 21.4 million who'll buy a Wii and 19.6 million who'll get an Xbox 360.

Xbox 360: $299/$399

PlayStation 3: $499/$599

Nintendo Wii: $249

Xbox 360: 800,000

PlayStation 3: 8.9 million

Nintendo Wii: 5.7 million

Xbox 360: 19.6 million

PlayStation 3: 36 million

Nintendo Wii: 21.4 million

The trend, Dowling noted, is that consumers appear to be more interested in the Wii than the Xbox 360 for the coming holiday season. The Wii appears to be appealing both to younger and older demographics, partly due to holiday gift-buying responsibilities, but also because of the company's popular legacy titles, like Mario and Zelda.

No small solace for Microsoft was Interpret’s data that showed Xbox gamers are broad consumers of entertainment content, indicating a higher propensity for downloading video, renting DVDs and watching TV than both the population at large and gamers in general. That bodes well for Microsoft's Xbox Live Video Marketplace, launched this week, which will sell movies and TV shows that can be downloaded to the Xbox and viewed on a TV.

Finally, in an encouraging sign that new consoles could potentially drive the "digital living room," Interpret found that 27.5% of gamers agreed with the idea that the more options there are for watching a TV show or movie, across platforms and devices, etc., the more likely they are to actually view it.

Mark Hefflinger