Multi |
by Dan Nicolae Alexa |
12th December 2007 |
After
announcing you a few days ago about the situation of the
console market in the Gaelic territory, it is now the time to give you
a more detailed view about what's going on there.
According to
French research firm TNS Sofres,
the French market has reached maturity, but has not yet lost its
attractiveness for developers and publishers. During the two days of
telephone interviews (November 21 and 22), more than 1,000 French
gamers, aged above 15, responded to questions that tried to clarify
aspects like: what's the situation of the gaming market in France? who
are the players? on what platforms do they play (PC, consoles,
mobiles...)? what do they intend to purchase in the next 6 months? what
do they think of in-game advertisement?
The investigation found
that there are about 1.8 gamers in approximately half of the French
homes. That means that compared to last year the market did not suffer
significant modification, but remained stable in its appeal. For
example, the intention of buying a console in the next 6 months is
around 12 to 15 percent higher than last year, among gamers aged beyond
15.
Although the PC is still the main gaming platform in
Napoleon's country (more than 70% of all gamers said they play on a
PC), the consoles are making a statement, reaching 49% of the market
share. The rest is split between portable consoles (24 percent) and
mobile phones (19 percent).
The profile of the average gamer in
France has undergone some changes, like the fact that the proportion of
very young gamers (below 10 years of age) has increased by 13 percent
compared to last year. The mean age of the French gamer is still 25,
but there are considerably less gamers now from the 15-25 category that
there were a year ago (27%, a 6 percent fall).
TNS Sofres says that more than 40 percent of the gamers in France are women/girls.
The console war seems to give Sony the king's crown, but also underlines
Nintendo's
impressive progress (like everywhere else in the world). The
PlayStation brand by far dominates the French market, with more than a
third of hardcore gamers being "equipped" with a PS2, while 13% are
still enamoured with their PS1. The Wii comes next, with 11% of the
gamers owning Nintendo's product. The Xbox trails the Wii with 10%,
while the Xbox 360 has only 4% market share, even behind its
later-arrived rival PlayStation 3 (5%). The good-ol' GameCube is still
young and fresh, at 8% market share.
As for the portables, the DS holds an undeniable supremacy, with about
23% of the gamers having one in their arsenal. Nintendo's portable
platform si followed by the GameBoy (20%) and by Sony's PSP (11%).
The weird part is that most French gamers play casual games on...their
PC, two thirds of them confessing to spending time with games included
by default in their operating system. And what's even weirder is the
fact that this type of activity has seen an increase of 13 points
(according to TNS Sofres) since last year. Telephones are also an
important gaming platform in the Hexagon, with one in five gamers
playing on their mobiles and with 5% of them downloading phone-games
regularly, at least once in a month.
French gamers don't mind seeing ads in games, they're actually quite in
favor of it (83 percent), as long it's well integrated, it respects the
game and doesn't disturb the gameplay.
| Your Rating: |
Overall Rating: |
|
|
1 vote |
