Analysts say only a fraction of gamers use video playback capabilities
By Erik Hanson 
posted Jun 30th 2007 6:15PM
posted Jun 30th 2007 6:15PM
Research analysts at The Diffusion Group have released an interesting study into the habits and knowledge levels of gamers in relationship to playing back videos, DVDs, and other video content on their consoles. Only 30% of console owners surveyed knew their game boxes were capable of playing back movies or other content, and only 13% were actually using it for that purpose. Read on for more. On one hand, as enthusiasts we'd love to tear this study to shreds, pointing out that they might not have been interviewing the right people (did they ask people using Dreamcast and Sega Genesis? or just those with 360s and PS3s?), or asking the questions in the right way (did they ask if people were only using the high-def capabilities of their consoles? did they even ask if the consoles were hooked up to HDTVs?) Trying to take a step back from the situation and look objectively makes us realize, as with HDTV display manufacturers, a lot of the fault lies in informing customers about their products. Surveys still point to consumers believing that they simply need hook up a VCR to an HDTV to make it "high def," and this is probably no different.
So do us a favor, evangelize for HD, will ya? Tell a friend about that HD DVD add-on for his Xbox, or show a neighbor how to download some 1080 content from the PSN store. You'll make us all smile in the process.
Oh Em Gee a black Wii!!!!11. Where do I get one!??!?!?!
Interesting article... "only 13% were actually using it for that purpose". Lets play with this number. We have 3.5M PS3's sold in the US. 3.5M x 13% = 455,000 PS3's being used for video playback. We also see reports that PS3 has an attach rate of 0.5 discs per console. 3.5M x 0.5 = 1,750,000 discs sold in the US. Seems like PS3 owners are 4 times as likely as a typical gaming console owner to use their device for movie playback. That's good news for Sony. The bad news is that the competition's stand alone players have a reported attach rate of 5.5, which means they only need to sell 3.5M x 0.5 / 5.5 = 318,182 stand alone players to match the PS3. Toshiba has 70% of the stand alone HD player market right now, so balancing out the PS3's effect on the HD movie market will happen this year.
Grab some popcorn and soda, and then fasten your seatbelts... this is going to be a long ride/war.
I would definitely use the media center feature of my PS3 more, but unless i re-encode all my stuff from WMV, AVI and divx/xvid into mpeg2...IT WILL NOT WORK. I know sony just release the 1.82 (i think) upgrade where it will handle h264 through the media center, but this does not work...period. I've seen quite a few PS3 forums where people have said the same, the ps3 is finicky at best. i've literally tried 15 different formats, and the only one i can get to work is mpeg 2. sorry to go off on a tangent...but it blows. and for those that aren't familiar w/ mpeg2, and why i hate it so much...i dont want to take a wmv video that i have which is 12 mb (not a porn clip) put it in mpeg2, and then suddenly have a 180 mb clip.
if anyone knows of any program that works well, where i can actually keep the original clip size w/out having to resize to a PSP sized resolution, please...pass it along. Better yet, sony release a full proof program to take the guess work out of it for all the ps3 owners and i'll even buy it (or download a hacked copy)
just get Linux and VLC player to play your non HD files
I play H.264 in my PS3 all the time. Anything I export using Quicktime works on the PS3 without any problems. I use eyeTV software to record MPEG2 transport streams from OTA HD on my Mac. Then, I reencode it to H.264. It plays fine on my PS3.
that kinda works....but i preferred not to run linux on it
Then where this comes from???
Blu-ray
http://img157.imageshack.us/img157/9032/top20blurayfl8.png
VS
hd dud
http://img174.imageshack.us/img174/1489/top20hddvdwg8.png
LOL
?
So a format that supposedly has 5.5 MILLION players in the market can only sell 83,600 copies of (arguably) the best title on the format? And that's "kicking the crap out of HD DVD?"
This is EXACTLY what people mean when they're saying that while it's true the PS3 is the only thing keeping BD alive, that it's not helping BD run away with the crown.
At this rate, either both formats will live forever or both formats will disappear.
@Dave....
wow those numbers are really bad. Not only is blu ray just kickin the crap outta HD-DVD in terms of highest selling unit (casino royale vs the departed) but for every single movie which is on blu ray and on hd-dvd, the blu ray version is out selling the hd-dvd version in about a 2:1 ratio. Not good news for the non exclusive titles.
@SimbaDogg
From the firmware 1.8 and above, the PS3 can use the DLNA
to connect to a PC and listen to songs, view photos and play videos,
without re-encoding them.
[They're transcoded on the fly in the PC]
You just need a DLNA server, some of them you can get it for free:
- The Windows Media Player 11 has a server included.
- TVERSITY (http://www.tversity.com/home)
Here's a guide to configure the PC and the PS3 to use DLNA
http://www.ps3forums.com/showthread.php?t=74559
What a total bunch of idiots.. It's ovbious console owners DO make a difference. As Blu-Ray sales have gone through the roof since PS3 launch..
Have we really got to such a state, where any idiot can post a "news" article or report, and everyone suddently believes it...
I use my 360 to play video almost every day. Mostly from my Media Center PC, but also from my HD-DVD add-on. But most of my friends with 360s don't use it for media at all.
My local newspaper (the Los Angeles Times, serving Hollywood) doesn't indicate which TV shows are in HD in their listings, nor does the sports page note which events are in HD.
It seems that newspapers would be a place to start if you want to complain about people being uninformed.
Ps3 sales are 1.6 million in the US, not 3 million.
@Dave
HD DUD huh?
HD DVD and BD pre-orders for '300' went up at Amazon.com today.
Guess which format kicked the other one's ass and managed to sell so many that Amazon had to go back into pre-order status?
Get a life, hater.
How can you NOT know your console plays video? If you explore the dashboard of the 360 or PS3 for even 2 minutes, it's easy to see they can do more than play games. I can understand not using video capabilities, but the ones who don't even know are just morons.
That said, I use my 360 to stream videos from my PC all the time. It's much more convenient to watch stuff like Diggnation on my big TV than on the computer. I also occasionally buy a TV show or two on Xbox Live Marketplace. I wonder how accurate those numbers are.
It's an obvious, but overlooked, observation that many (most?) PS3s are hooked up to SD sets or by SD cables to HD sets. (And some of the ones actually connected to HD sets are probably still at default SD settings). So the Sony/BDA propaganda that talks about a 5-to-1 player lead is just so much hooey.
So, to recap: every last one of the (now) half a million HD DVD players (Toshiba + Xbox) are bought by people who use them for watching HD movies on HD TVs. Only some of the PS3 buyers a) watch movies; b) have an HD set; or c) have the PS3 hooked up for HD.
And each additional HD DVD player sale is pure movie watcher, while (given $500 BD players) EVERY ADDITIONAL PS3 sale is made to a gamer.
I dont use the video features at all with my 360. Any movies I do have on my comp are all in xvid/divx and those wont work without some other transcoding type software. Not only that, but I have my VGA out on my pc connected to my hdtvs vga in. Absolutly no need to use another device when I can use the computer directly on the big tv. I even get all the benefits of the os like web browsing and games etc etc. So yeah. No need because pc and xbox are in the same room and even if they were not, there is no support for the internets popular codecs which all the movies come in from the torrent sites so what the hell am i gonna watch?
It seems very odd that so few people know their game systems can playback dvds or videos. I wonder if they do not know or do not use it because they use a standalone player.
@Kevin Murphy,
Actually, due to the lower prices, lots of the HD DVD players are sold as replacement DVD players where the Salesrep convinces people that they will probably get an HDTV some day and that the HD DVD players Picture quality looks better than a standard DVD player even on SD.
So lots of HD DVD stand alone players are not used for HD DVD movies, they are used to play DVDs and the customers might be 3 HD DVD discs this year if you are lucky.
I was at Fry's this weekend, and heard a Rep tell a customer that buying a Drama on Blu-ray instead of DVD was a waste of Money because the picture wasn't as big a factor in the overall entertainment of a Drama '.'
The HD DVD/DVD confusion may be selling more HD DVD players, but it doesn't necessarily mean selling more HD DVD discs.
And Sony has a Movie give-away campaign to make it clear to PS3 buyers that the PS3 Can play Blu-rays.
So it is likely, that if we picked apart those Stats we'd find a Greater percentage of the PS3 owners were aware and also used the disc play-back abilities of their consoles.
It was stupid for these analysts to lump all the consoles into a grp and then use those stats to say something about any one console, especially the one console that comes installed and is highly promoted as a HD disc player.
I wonder who they asked in the survey? Who honestly doesn't know their console can playback movies? Did they interview preteens? This survey makes console owners looks like idiots.
I laught at the thought of how many households have a console with DVD playback capabilities on their TV, only to go out and buy a DVD player because they didn't know.
Seriously, who did they talk to? Only 30%? If this is true we have a long way yet to go to explain HDTV and Hi Def movies...
Why is everyone so shocked by this story?
Never underestimate the ignorance and incompetence of the masses.
"People like blood sausage too, people are morons."
-- Phil Connors in Groundhog Day (1993) as portrayed by Bill Murray
Like I want to have a fight with the kids over video vs. game play. Ain't no way a game console is going to be connected to the TV where I want to watch a video. So there isn't any way the game console is going to be used to play videos.