Interesting news today and yet not overly surprising either. A new study shows that kids now prefer to play games on their mobile device of choice over playing games on consoles. This is a pretty big change from when we were kids. Mind you mobile games have come a long way since their beginnings.
The NDP Group has published a new report that says more 2- to 17-year-olds in the US are playing games on their phones and tablets (coming in at 63%) than on their consoles ( coming in at 60%). Two years ago it was 67% of that age group playing games on consoles, so there is a change happening. This is probably going to continue as well with mobile games becoming more and more closer in quality and depth to their console brethren.
Another interesting bit of information is that kids in that age group are playing games on mobile devices more often, averaging 6 hours a week. PC gaming has fallen even more so in this age range, with the platforms 67% adoption rating in 2013 dropping to 43% this year. Here is where it gets entertaining. These analysts and experts don’t have a firm reason to why this shift is happening.
Apparently they think it is because their parents have also moved on from PC and console gaming to mobile gaming. And while that is probably true to some degree, that definitely isn’t the main reason for this change. Mobile gaming is more accessible to all age groups, everyone has a mobile phone basically. Not everyone has a PS4, Xbox One, or use PCs for gaming. Mobile gaming is also more affordable as well, with a lot of free-to-play games being there for a 15yr old who doesn’t have $50 to blow on a console game all the time. Lastly, mobile gaming is getting close to console and PC gaming in terms of quality, and will continue to get there as the technology gets better.
Then again half the experts out there don’t actually know what they are talking about half the time. Not saying this is the case here, but we see it a lot when we see reports on monetizing mobile games, mobile game analytics, and so on.
