Using the recent platform exclusive God of War III (GOW III) release as a lens, Nielsen explored the motivating factors for purchasing a Playstation 3. GOW III was greeted with extensive media coverage, midnight launch parties at video game retailers and excellent critical reviews. Certainly Sony and the gaming industry at large expect that GOW III will achieve blockbuster sales figures and stoke interest in the PS3. But how important are specific games titles, even those that are destined to be platinum sellers, in motivating potential hardware buyers considering the many entertainment capabilities of present-gen consoles?

Over a three week period prior to, during and after GOW III was released, Nielsen interviewed more than 700 active gamers ages 7-54 who do not currently own a PS3 but are definitely or probably interested in acquiring the system in the next six months to better understand the factors behind their purchase intent.

Among those gamers motivated to acquire a PS3 because they are looking forward to buying a specific game, GOW III was the clear winner. However, overall results indicate that specific game titles rank as the least frequently cited reason for being interested in purchasing a PS3.

When asked to rank the five most important reasons (out of 10 possible, with a rank of 1 indicating the most important reason) for being interested in buying a PS3, gamers included “I am looking forward to buying a specific game” 12% of the time, lagging behind all the other potential motivators by a substantial margin.

While Blu-ray capability and the PS3 price reduction are included most often overall, there is evidence that suggests that software and gaming strongly motivate these potential buyers, with the library of games cited by 62%. In addition, the desire to connect and play games with friends who already own a PS3 and the ability to play multiplayer games on the PlayStation Network that speak to the appeal of PS3 as a gaming platform are also included by many gamers, indicating that these respondents are motivated to purchase the system in part for its gaming capabilities. A specific game as the motivator is included by only one in every eight gamers (12%) intending to buy the system

Despite the fact that buying a specific game does not rank high on the list of reasons for acquiring a PS3, GOW III was the most popular game among those who mentioned that a particular title is a Top 5 motivator of their console purchase. Across a list of 20 PS3 titles including Heavy Rain, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, Little Big Planet and Gran Turismo 5, one-third (33%) of gamers indicate GOW III as their first choice. With no other game garnering more than 13% of the first choice vote (Final Fantasy XIII comes in as a distant runner-up) and most titles falling at 3% or below, the strong appeal of GOW III is readily apparent.

Not to be overlooked is that nearly half (49%) cited interest in the console for its multimedia capabilities. This is especially interesting because the tagline for Sony’s recent marketing campaign, “It only does everything,” touts the entertainment versatility of the PS3 even as it features specific high-profile games, including GOW III, in select ads. Considering the data, it appears as though this marketing strategy complements consumer sentiment. While many potential PS3 buyers will see GOW III as an important asset, more often the game will be considered one of many reasons to acquire the console rather than the sole motivator.

“Casual games are very popular, especially in this economic environment, and they enjoy a broader audience than typical, hardcore PC games,” said Brad Raczka, marketing analyst for Nielsen’s Games division. “Not only does casual gaming draw in traditional ‘gamers’ such as teens and young adults, but also prime advertising targets such as stay-at-home moms, retired people and younger kids.”

Based on data from the first six months of 2009,  41 million Americans play casual games on average. Of the top 20 casual game titles that Nielsen tracked in May 2009, card games, played by 88 percent of casual gamers, were by far the most popular. Puzzle games were a distant second at 9.5 percent.

Casual gamers spend less than half the time non-casual gamers do in each session. While casual game sessions lasted an average of 31 minutes, non-casual was more than double, at 80 minutes per session (World of Warcraft helped bump up this average, with an average play time of nearly 120 minutes).

Casual Gamers Come Back For More

Measured over a seven-month period, the recurring game play rate for casual games was found to match or exceed that for non-casual games. For example, about 20 percent of the 47 million unique gamers who played Microsoft Solitaire at least once during the seven-month period, came back to the game at least once in each of the seven months measured. By comparison, about 12 percent of the 5 million World of Warcraft players who played the game in two or more months returned to it at least once every month.

Cost does not make a significant impact in whether players come back to the games month after month. Nielsen found similar recurring game play rates between those using the free Microsoft Solitaire to those playing the for-charge Great Escapes Solitaire.

Females make up the majority of casual gamers (58 percent), a significant shift from non-casual games, which are much more of a man’s world. Males make up a full 75 percent of those playing non-casual shooter games, and 63 percent of those playing role-playing games. The players of non-casual games also tend to have computers with much more memory, averaging over 2 gigabytes, compared with the relatively modest 0.5 to 1 gigabytes of the casual gamers.

Download Nielsen’s Insights on Casual Games

“Primarily, we believe mainstream gamers are playing more of the broadly appealing games (i.e Wii Fit, Guitar Hero and Rock Band) pushing their hours of gameplay up,” said Michael Flamberg, director of client consulting, Nielsen Games. “The social aspects of these games have engaged them. We don’t believe hardcore gamers are driving up the usage averages we’ve observed. Second, gamers may be looking to stretch their entertainment dollar further through playing games they own more. The importance of value for them is evident in the findings on used game purchase.”

In terms of why new game sales have been soft, Nielsen offers three contributing factors that explain this:

1. Used game purchasing is at all-time highs in 2009, looking back since 2006. Claims about how many used games are being purchased in absolute terms and as a share of the total (used vs. new) have increased substantially (see graph). This is corroborated by GameStop’s record-breaking first quarter financial results, on the strength of used game sales. Best Buy recently announced it was getting into the used game market as well and Wal-Mart is testing this out.
2. There has been an uptick in claimed subscriptions to video game rental services by mail, to all-time highs since 2006 (14% of gamers in May). This is a plausible substitute for new game purchasing.
3. New game sales have been soft compared to last year in part because of unfavorable title comparisons in terms of how popular the releases have been this spring vs. last spring. This is a hit driven business and there haven’t been as many hits. Awareness of new titles, when prompted with their names, has dipped in 2009 to lows not seen since 2007.

For more, download The Value Gamer: Play and Purchase Behavior in a Recession and read the coverage in the Los Angeles Times.

A gamer is defined as claiming to have purchased a title in the past 6 months and played for at least 1 hour per week on any of the current consoles or the PC.

Online Buzz for Resident Evil 5 And Metallica’s Guitar Hero

In addition to gaming consoles such as PlayStation and Xbox, PC gaming is alive and well, while new platforms like mobile phones offer new possibilities for game developers.  More than ever before, video games encompass a broad spectrum of genres, platforms and price.

Other key findings from Nielsen’s report include:

• PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 attract the more engaged users, who are less likely to be watching prime time TV that users of other consoles.

• PlayStation 2 still leads all other consoles in total minutes of usage, but continues to have the highest downward trend.  Data suggests that the PS2 will lose the top usage spot within the next few months.

• Females 25 years and older make up the largest block of PC game players, accounting for 46.2 percent of all players and 54.6 percent of all game play minutes in December 2008.

• The most played games on the PC are card games from Microsoft, with Solitaire being the most played game in December 2008 with over 17 million players.

“Gaming, once the domain of kids and a small group of core fans, is now more mainstream than ever.  As the number of platforms continues to expand, we would expect that more people will be drawn to the entertainment video games can offer.  Along with this, the evolution of gaming consoles into multimedia devices has changed consumption habits of traditional media such as TV, movie and Internet content,” said Bradley Raczka, Marketing Manager for Nielsen Games.

View the complete State of the Video Gamer report here.

“All three of the consoles have their fans, and sales of consoles and games have been some of the few bright spots in an otherwise bleak retail environment,” said Bradley Raczka, Marketing Manager for Nielsen Games.  “It will be interesting to watch the continued migration to the current generation consoles in 2009, and see how releases of titles such as Halo Wars, Resident Evil 5, MadWorld, Killzone 2 and Street Fighter IV impact usage trends in the first half of the year.”

• Wii: The best-selling of the three systems, appeals to boys age 6-11 and women age 25-34. Usage of Wii by women 35+ is much higher than with the Xbox 360 and PS3. Games such as Wii Fit, Guitar Hero and Rock Band appear to have engaged an older female gamer like never before.

Usage of Wii by the 18-24 age group, considered the core/hardcore gaming segment, is low for both genders compared to the other two consoles.  However, Wii has been successful in broadening the gaming market to a wider demographic audience.

• Xbox 360: For males, the largest percentage of usage is in the 12-17 age group, older than Wii, but younger than PS3. For females, the 25-34 age group had the highest percentage of usage. These consumers may also be attracted to the other services featured such as Xbox Live, which offers online play, onlineaudio/videochat, and the ability to download movies (now with Netflix as part of the NXEXbox Live update),classic video & user generated games, additional game contentand music videos.

• PS3: The Sony console skews the oldest of the three consoles, and that could be the result of consumer brand loyalty, since Sony has been the dominant market player since it introduced the PS One in 1994 and PS 2 in 2000. Gamers who owned one or both of these consoles in their youth may have “graduated” to the PS3 in their assumed adulthood. For both males and females, the highest usage came from the 18-24 age group.

In terms of overall usage, males using the Xbox 360 are playing almost twice as many days per months as females (10.2 vs. 5.4 in December), but on the other two consoles, usage days for males and females are much closer.  On average, the least used console is the Wii.

During the fourth quarter, November had higher than average usage days on all three consoles, due largely to the fact that the bulk of game releases occur during October and November in advance of the holidays.  In 2008, a number of highly anticipated titles were released, such as Gears of War 2,  Wii Fit, Grand Theft Auto IV, Dead Space, Guitar Hero: World Tour, Call of Duty: World at War and  Left 4 Dead .

A complete comparison of console usage during the fourth quarter can be viewed in PDF form here.

Nielsen Games’ GamePlay Metrics service provides measurement of console activity from the National TV Panel of homes.

PlayStation 2 again topped Nielsen’s ranking of the most-played video game consoles.

Top 10 PC Game Titles: September 2008

Topline Console Usage – September 2008