What? 30% of Xbox 360 Owners Aware of HD Graphics, 40% of PS3 Users Aware of Blu-ray Player
A defining feature of this generation's consoles is undoubtedly high-definition visuals. With the HD-DVD/Blu-ray debate and constant graphical comparisons between the Xbox 360 and the PS3, I thought it was pretty much impossible to not know about the HD graphics capabilities of either console. However, 1up.com reported that according the "Next Gen Functionality & Usage" study by the NPD Group, console buyers don't know jack:
Only 40% of PlayStation 3 owners polled were aware the machine had a Blu-ray player and about 50% of that number had popped in a Blu-ray movie during the last 10 times they turned on the machine -- the other half didn't use the feature. ... Only 30% of Xbox 360 owners were aware of the HD graphics capabilities of the machine, whereas that number rises to 50% with PS3.
The report was based on online survey responses in April from 6,260 members of NPD's online consumer panel and "compromised of males and females ages 6 to 44, are qualified owners of at least one next generation system (PS3, PSP, Wii, NDS, Xbox 360)."
What this suggests is that gamers are oblivious and/or don't care about the HD functions of these consoles, which I find extremely hard to believe. I'd be interested to see just how many of the 6,260 respondents were 6 year-old Wii owners...
NPD: 30% of Xbox 360 Owners Aware of HD Graphics [1up]
Lazy Panda
Posted to Hot Stuff, Video Games on 11 August 2007
· Comments (6)
Other stuff like this: graphics, high definition, ps3, surveys are crap sometimes, xbox 360
That really doesn't surprise me, people don't even know what HD or quality is.
The other day, I was at the cinema to see Harry Potter, but there was a problem: they didn't shut down the lights, we couldn't hear anything and the movie was in 4/3, ergo completely ugly... Believe me or not, some people didn't realize something was wrong.
Yeah, I don't know the specifics about Blu-ray and HD either. And I don't really care for that matter.
I buy my consoles and thus my games for story and gameplay. Graphics comes in third as far as reason for purchase go.
Sure I like it if they're pretty looking, but it isn't such a big deal to me that I go reading up every single detail and spec and making little comparisons.
I still enjoy playing Dreamcast games and even Saturn or PSX games. Should I just throw them away because they're not the best looking games on the market?
I think the main problem is that most gamers like us also use the internet and know what is really going on - hardcore gamers so to speak (term used lightly). Because most of us speak to each other though this kind of medium, it seems like there's much more of us than there really is.
The reality is that most gamers (especially with the push by Nintendo), are really just casual gamers (again, I use the term lightly), and the hardcore gamers are a minority.
We don't have to like it, but that is the case in the gaming industry today - and unfortunately that will affect what publishers put out.
So I'm not really surprise. Most of my friends just think owning a PS3 is cool, whether they actually use it for games or movies is another matter.
"50% of that number had popped in a Blu-ray movie during the last 10 times they turned on the machine -- the other half didn't use the feature."
Doesn't that seem a little odd? There weren't any respondents who used the blu-ray player (in general) but hadn't used their PS3 to watch a movie in the last ten times they used it?
I think they meant "didn't use that feature regularly", and simply didn't ask the question "Have you EVER..." because that's not really indicative of anything.
It's like the way I've played videos on the Wii photo channel, but after the first couple, I just went back to using the Internet channel to watch Youtube or whatever once in a while when I thought something needed to be on the big screen, and mainly use my Wii to do what I bought it for, namely play games. Others, like my brother and my Wii-owning coworkers, have never done anything BUT play games on their Wiis and 360s (I've never met anyone in real life with a PS3.)
The PS2 demonstrated amply that video playback can draw some people to buy a console who otherwise wouldn't have bought it, and the XBMC attracted some people to the Xbox, but watching videos on a console still falls solidly within the realm of gimmicks, far more than, say, an altered controller would.
So I'd have to answer that I haven't watched any videos on my Wii the last 10 times I've turned it on (haven't had time to turn it on since the Metroid 3 trailers came out) just as the PS3 owners
had to answer that they hadn't watched any Blu-ray movies in a while. And just as with the PS2, the number who do watch movies on it will continue to decrease over time.
It still may be enough to make Blu-ray win over HD-DVD, but study after study shows that most people just don't use game consoles to watch movies. (Or, for that matter, surf the web, check the useless weather, or read the news, lest anyone get the impression I think Nintendo hasn't wasted any resources either.)
Movie playback is like any of these other non-gaming-related features: a bullet point, and that's all.
What shocks me the most is that they don't even think what it is that they're paying for.
Almost as if they're willing to plunk down $500 - $700 just for the name of "Microsoft" or "Sony", and not what they're even getting for that amount of money.