Report: 190 Million Console Owners Worldwide By 2012

By now, industry insiders and journalists are well aware of the fact that gaming has gone fully mainstream, but the potential statistics might surprise even the most optimistic fans.

According to research by technology analysts TDG, about 190 million households around the world will have a next-generation console by 2012, and about 148 million of that 190 million will be connected to the Internet. (source- DigitalSpy.co.uk) As for actual downloading of digital media, the report estimates that 110 million consoles will be used for that purpose in a little over three years time. Co-author of the report, Colin Dixon, said that these findings prove how far consoles have come; that the general public will be turning to video game systems more and more to satisfy their movie and even television needs. "Microsoft and Sony know that today's console gamers are perfectly suited for new TV offerings," he said. And if you're wondering whether or not gamers have it in them to spend a good deal of money online, Dixon added that most of them are clearly "quite comfortable spending money for online digital media." But it's that 190 million number overall that's turning heads, and infusing even more legitimacy into the thriving industry.

190 million. Seriously, that's just nutty. Coming from the early days of Atari, most of us could never have believed at the time that such a statistic could even be suggested for the future.

12/2/2008 Ben Dutka

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Comments (Beta)

crapreviews
Tuesday, December 02, 2008 @ 1:13:32 PM
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really? that's weird considering i still have trouble at times finding people who are into playing video games... at least around my age (30).

1 up, 0 down

snglbck26
Tuesday, December 02, 2008 @ 1:32:07 PM

I hear you on that. On-line though it seems like there are a number of "older" people playing.

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BlinkBoy
Tuesday, December 02, 2008 @ 1:14:37 PM
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Hmm will we still call PS3 and 360 for next-generation in 2012? Shouldn't we call it current generation by now.

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jerocarson
Tuesday, December 02, 2008 @ 1:27:47 PM
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interesting....

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Gogaku
Tuesday, December 02, 2008 @ 1:53:54 PM
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And there's about 900 million people starving all over the world, we should be ashamed of ourselves :S

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Aftab
Wednesday, December 03, 2008 @ 1:24:49 AM

By our standards of starvation, it's more like a few billion. Shameful, especially when you hear people complaining about a release date of a game, or about the price per gallon of gas, and somewhere, at the same moment not too far away, there are many more people worried about when their children had their last meal, and when will they have their next one. My theory is that hardly a fraction of the percentage of the GDP of the wealthy nations is enough to the feed the rest of world.

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Joe_III
Tuesday, December 02, 2008 @ 1:55:21 PM
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Not altogether unreasonable. That's only about 2-3% of the current world population...

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Scarecrow
Tuesday, December 02, 2008 @ 2:00:31 PM
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yay
Hope quality of games is not replaced by greed and unoriginality.

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WorldEndsWithMe
Tuesday, December 02, 2008 @ 2:27:59 PM
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To be honest with you I can't understand why 190 Million households don't already have a next gen system. Most people have kids, the cost isn't that bad when you consider the capabilities, and clearly gaming isn't just for kids anymore. For parents who aren't, buying a PS3 and hooking it up to the entertainment center means not needing a CD player or DVD or Blu-ray player. It's a leisurely way to surf the net and rent movies. How many people own a PC? Whatever that number is, that's how many people should be gaming with us.

2 up, 1 down

shaydey77
Tuesday, December 02, 2008 @ 2:35:49 PM
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I wonder how many consoles will be owned worldwide if they included old consoles..theres at least 5 in my house!!

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BikerSaint
Wednesday, December 03, 2008 @ 12:56:50 AM

LOL, I have 9 systems myself....
but unfortunetly, not the PS3 or 360 as of yet(working on getting both in 09)

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Frenchy17
Tuesday, December 02, 2008 @ 3:30:03 PM
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wish I still had my old consoles. Only one I still have is my old Atari 5200. I need new controllers for it though.

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hald
Tuesday, December 02, 2008 @ 3:36:35 PM
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I know this is off topic!
But, Ben - Is there any news on Rag Doll Kung Fu for ps3?
Some sites have said it would be out this winter, though nothing seems as if it will (never heard more about it since september, I think.)
I wnat it so much! : o

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ffrulez
Tuesday, December 02, 2008 @ 3:56:55 PM
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well, 140 million own a ps2, so it's viable. (even though ps2 is last gen).
What i'm saying is that there ARE that many people who can own those consoles, because it was proven last gen with the monstrous sales of the ps2.

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kreate
Tuesday, December 02, 2008 @ 4:15:46 PM
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can we finally see some sex in video games?

2 up, 2 down

Scarecrow
Tuesday, December 02, 2008 @ 4:27:48 PM

No it's better in real-life

8 up, 0 down

WorldEndsWithMe
Tuesday, December 02, 2008 @ 9:29:39 PM

lol, scarecrow goes deadpan and gets the thumbs up from this gamer.

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AntDC
Thursday, December 04, 2008 @ 12:26:57 AM

LOL there PIXELS for christ sake.

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Cavan
Tuesday, December 02, 2008 @ 4:30:46 PM
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if ps2 is last gen, and ps3/360 is next gen... then what is current gen??? lol

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phade2blaq
Tuesday, December 02, 2008 @ 5:46:47 PM
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Wow ! 190 million ! That's a high number considering the plight of overall world economics and the day to day struggle just to survive.

When game consoles sell for around $199-$250 people are more likely to buy one at those prices than they would be at $300-$500 bucks.

For people with kids, it's hard to justify buying a $399-$499 PS3 for a 12 year old when you can get a "kid friendly Wii" for roughly half of a high end PS3 or a $199 360 !

I'm thinking most PS3 owners are young adults with money to burn.

Last edited by phade2blaq on 12/2/2008 5:48:08 PM

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Joe_III
Tuesday, December 02, 2008 @ 6:10:35 PM

blah blah blah...

PS3 is the best value as far as consoles go. You get way way more bang for your buck. While a better price point would definitely help, what they really need are bundles. I'm not talking jacked up bundles that big sellers like walmart/gamestop make you buy, but something like the xbox has right now. Of course, M$ is putting in kids games trying to take a chunk out of nintendo, but Sony needs to put one together for adults. They could easily put RFOM and Heavenly Sword (I think they made both of those in house) in a bundle for $399 and sales would probably double for jan/feb...

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BigBoss4ever
Tuesday, December 02, 2008 @ 9:11:19 PM
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this is good and this is bad at the same time imo.

the good thing is gaming is no longer deemed as the kids thing for people who do not want to study, work, or achieve anything important in life.

the bad thing is in order to accomodate the mass public, the developers and publishers will produce more and more games for commercial and business purpose just to meet the needs of many casual gamers. As any hardcore and REAL gamers all know, excellent games and hardcore games and some superb games are not for everyone, PS3 games and Wii games are good contrasting examples. Long point short, as developers move to fit and tailor their productions towards mass public's needs, the REAL gamers that love specific games having extreme but genius sides might not see they have the same attention as they had from the good old times. Just look at what happen to the movie industry, I could not remember I watched any superb or excellent movie in recent years, all commercial and explosion, and superficial hi-tech, thats it.

Last edited by BigBoss4ever on 12/2/2008 9:17:41 PM

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WorldEndsWithMe
Tuesday, December 02, 2008 @ 9:32:06 PM

Surprise surprise, (referring to your second paragraph) the local news in my state cited more "studies" tonight that tv and video games make you a fat drug user who has unprotected sex with multiple partners. Sheesh these people will never learn correlative statistics.

Last edited by WorldEndsWithMe on 12/2/2008 9:34:19 PM

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BigBoss4ever
Tuesday, December 02, 2008 @ 10:11:32 PM

that is interesting to know but I cannot make much sense out of the "unprotected sex with multiple partners" part. Sad thing for those statistics are such that the conclusions or inferences are usually drawn from a small or biased example and then assumed to be the universal law. Chances are, more often than not, they are the results of poorly controlled experiments or based on pre-emptive conclusions. I mean, unless these surveys are from really reliable sources and well conducted with strictly controlled variables, they are not credible.

Last edited by BigBoss4ever on 12/2/2008 10:14:01 PM

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FLYING_APE
Wednesday, December 03, 2008 @ 2:09:13 AM

1, 2, 3 FIGHT hahahahahahha

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CH1N00K
Wednesday, December 03, 2008 @ 8:11:06 AM

Have you ever seen a fat drug user? Lol.. I thought they were all skinny and twitchy...

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somethingrandom
Tuesday, December 02, 2008 @ 9:49:55 PM
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You know there are some people who don't know how to connect their console to their TV? Best Buy offers installations. That would explain why so little households have consoles.

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FLYING_APE
Wednesday, December 03, 2008 @ 2:13:00 AM
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Does anyone remeber 1984-1985 which was before my time, there was a videogame crash and then nintendo came up with the famicon and saved videogames. Well they might ruin it with this casual crap.

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sabitrulz
Wednesday, December 03, 2008 @ 4:24:45 AM
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Still remember da day when bought da PSone frm a electronic store in Bangladesh,everyone was staring @ me...cuz @ dat time it cost around 350$,350$ in 1996...was a lot of money...specially in Bangladesh.

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