Although numerous activities are available to get Americans off the couch, they still prefer to be there, a report from the NPD Group has found.
When asked how they'd spent their leisure-time hours in the past week, a whopping 81 percent of the 10,281 respondents had watched television, for about 10 hours on average for the week. It was the top leisure-time activity in the study, which covered people ages 13 and above. And that figure didn't even include watching movies on TV. It only included shows, news, and sports.
"There's a perception that families spending time in front of a glowing TV hearth has been replaced by glowing laptop or iPod displays," Russ Crupnick, entertainment industry analyst for NPD, said Tuesday in a statement. "And while that's true for some families, TV remains the top entertainment choice by far in the United States."
The NPD Group also found that traditional radio shouldn't be dismissed quite yet. Radio listening came in second place behind watching TV. A total of 78 percent of Americans listened to traditional radio, for more than five hours a week on average.
E-mail and instant messaging are also quite popular, with 70 percent taking part in those activities, for about four hours per week. The research firm also found that 60 percent of people still listen to music on CD.
About 47 percent of respondents said they visit social networks, for an average of five hours per week. And 11 percent of those surveyed said they tweet, for about three hours per week.
But it was the television that took the top spot for leisure activities. It seems that, when given the chance, most Americans choose the couch over anything else. Does that include you?
The video game industry is poised to make a rebound, Wedbush Morgan Securities analyst Michael Pachter wrote in a note to clients on Thursday. The analyst also predicted that it will be Sony's PlayStation 3, and not the Nintendo Wii, that will lead console sales for the month, when NPD releases figures next week.
The PlayStation 3 Slim is helping spur console sales.
(Credit: Sony)"After six consecutive months of double-digit declines, we expect a return to double-digit sales growth (on video game software)," Pachter wrote to clients. "We forecast sales of $750 million, up 21 percent, compared to last year's $618 million."
It's a good sign that after months of decline, the video game industry is finally rebounding. That said, overall sales are still far behind 2008 figures.
PS3 victory?
But it's Pachter's next topic that might easily attract the most attention. According to the analyst, he estimates that September's NPD figures will show a "sell-through of 390,000 Wii hardware units (down 45 percent from last year), 350,000 Xbox 360 units (up 1 percent from last year), and 410,000 PS3 consoles (up 76 percent year-over-year), as the price cuts for all three consoles spurred demand."
Although Pachter said he thinks console sales will be "relatively flat for the balance of the year," he did say that the price cuts could "benefit the PS3 the most in coming months." Not only does Pachter believe Sony's console will outsell the Xbox 360, but he contends that it's possible that the PlayStation 3 will lead Xbox 360 sales for the rest of the year.
Another Xbox 360 price cut?
Pachter isn't convinced that the price cuts are over. He wrote to clients that "Microsoft has the ability to lower price yet again," but he cautioned that a more likely scenario would see the company offer a "more feature-packed Xbox 360 in early 2010 (likely with a 250GB hard drive) at the same $299 price point." It could cut the price of its console if "it begins to lose significant market share to Sony."
As interesting as they might be, Pachter's comments are purely speculation at this point. Look for the official sales figures to drop next week, when NPD makes them available.
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Correction at 8:30 a.m. PDT: The release dates for Fallout 3 and for The Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena were incorrect. They have been removed from the list of 2009 and 2008 releases, respectively.
The video game industry is going through some tough times. When NPD Group released video game sales data for April last week, the results were disheartening.
According to NPD, total industry revenue was down 17 percent, year over year. Software sales for the month were down 30 percent, compared to April 2008. Wii sales were off 43 percent, PS3 sales slumped by 42 percent, and Xbox 360 sales were down 47 percent, compared to March 2009.
So what happened? Is the video game industry finally being affected by the recession? It's possible that it has some impact. But I don't think there's any better reason for the decline than the games themselves.
If the games aren't compelling, consumers won't be buying.
... Read moreOver the past week, Nintendo and Microsoft have been trading barbs over which console--the Xbox 360 or Wii--holds the top spot for the most third-party games sold.
Nintendo was the first to "set the record straight" and released data from NPD that the company claimed showed that the Wii has sold more games than any other console when first-party and third-party titles are factored in. After hearing doubts over the inclusion of first-party titles, Nintendo then released a graph showing sales of only third-party titles, which it once again, compiled from NPD source data.
"I actually think that given the number of comments made from industry executives at E3 (or thereabouts) about how they didn't put enough resources against development of Wii games that the industry has realized that the old adage of 'only first-party games sell on Nintendo systems' is absolutely incorrect. I think you're right that the data will cause a few eyebrows to lift," NPD industry analyst Anita Frazier said in defense of the figures.
But Microsoft was suspect of the data and decided to release its own figures obtained from NPD to "clear the air." In its study, Microsoft claims "total third-party sales for the Xbox 360 since launch is currently 67,929,999 units, followed by the Wii at 33,394,311 units, and the PlayStation 3 at 19,976,325 units.
"Third-party sales for the Xbox 360 since the launch of the Wii and PS3 is 54,065,728 units, still almost double the Wii's 33,394,311 units."
On top of that, the company claims that it's actually selling more third-party titles per console sold than Nintendo, which it believes, shows its success in the space.
"No matter how you slice it, the Wii third-party game story is not a pretty one," David Dennis, group manager of corporate PR at Microsoft's Interactive Entertainment Business, said in response to his company's report.
So which company is right? Well, it looks like they're both right in their own special way.
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