The Sony PlayStation 3 and the PSP have the highest percentage of brand awareness amongst consumers according to
Forrester's latest report on the video games industry (which we covered earlier, twice). The mail based survey
(of 10,000 households in North America) found that 72% of North American consumers have heard of the PlayStation 3 and
a full 6% plan to buy one, despite the fact that Sony has yet to announce a final feature set, a release date or the
console's price. The Sony PSP came second on the chart of consumer gaming device awareness - 65% of consumers have heard of the PSP and around 3% plan to buy one. It's clear that Microsoft's Xbox 360 console faces an uphill battle if it wants to wrestle the mindset of North American consumers away from Sony.
Amusingly--and probably unsurprisingly--none of the consumers that had heard of the Infinium Phantom said they were planning on buying the console.
[Update: elaborated on the origins of the survey.]
















(Page 1) Reader Comments
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Anyway, I really don't think there is going to be another Game Boy, as I see no reason for one. Nintendo would be competing with themselves. The DS, and soon the Lite, is already selling like crazy because of it's great innovative games, and I don't see why Nintendo would release a new Game Boy that throws this whole innovation thing Nintendo is going on (and delivering on) out the window.
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oh and i don't trust this at all. email based? so the people with the time energy and will to email were the only ones surveyed?
so yeah i trust it about as far as i can throw it, and i can't throw an internet survey...
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Die Sony Die!
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I'm curious if people were attributing the brand names from the last generation (PS2 was everywhere so maybe people assume a PS3 exists).
Sample demographics would be helpful...otherwise, it seems confounded.
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Get a more up to date chart, and you'll see things change.
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1. where is the ds?
2. how come gbe is up there?
3. no shit playstation is the biggest brand? even i could tell you that, and i wouldnt even have to do a survey to know it.
fail!
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Game Boy Evolution?
Some people actually intends to buy something that doesn't exsist or might not even exsist in the future.
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And yeah, there's no DS. Confounded from a research perspective.
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Since then hasn't Nintendo stated there isn't another GB coming out any time soon?
(Multple responses Accepted)
Is the other thing that makes me laugh.
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A quick survey of 3 of my friends (very scientific, right?), all of whom are gamers, reveals that 0% have heard of the Phantom.
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Did you even read the text below the graph? No one said they were interested in buying a Phantom. However, 50% polled did recognize the name.
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I'd say that poll has ZERO merit.
And I think people that say they're getting a PS3 should be required to show their financials as proof they can AFFORD it. I walk around all the time saying I'm going to buy this game and that game, but it's funny how much less enthused you are about big purchases once you take a look at your account balance...
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I would venture to say that the Gameboy Evolution is supposed to be the Nintendo DS. Either way, this whole survey is just ridiculous.
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Could we see a bit more on the demographics? I take ANY poll that says that 72% of ALL North American Consumers have specifically heard of PS3 with a major grain of salt.
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The PSP? Yeah right! Kids my age don't even know about the Revolution, let about some new game boy -- which I've never even heard of until now.
You ask people about game consoles and they'll say Playstation and Xbox. If they play games, they'll know about the Playstation 3 and Xbox 360.
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1) This was a mail based survey of 10,000 households in North America.
2) It was carried out in Q3 2005 which explains the lack of DS, Xbox 360 and the wierd GBE brand.
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If I went to Wal-mart right now and asked 30 people I bet 0 would know what the Phantom is. But all of 'em will know the Playstation, Xbox and GAmeboy.
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That just makes the situation all the more confusing, that doesn't explain anything...
During Q3 2005, the Xbox 360 was at the top of it's hype, and, depending on the precise timing, so was the Revolution (was the controller already revealed or not?).
The lack of DS makes NO sense whatsoever, since it had been released for almost a year in Q3 '05, just a bit longer than the PSP, which got listed.
As for the Game Boy Evolution, I would agree that Q3 2005 was a time where rumors were flying and people were using that term a lot, but it still proves that the company that made the survey had no idea what they were talking about. "Evolution" is a fan-given codename, and nothing more. There literally are NO, ZERO, ZIP details on this thing. And the fact it scored so high proves that people were confused, because I guarantee half of those people hadn't heard of it, since it's really only talked about in gaming circles (although EVERYONE has heard of the "Game Boy" brand).
This whole survey is BS on a stick, there's just way to many inconsistencies for it to have any merit. It wouldn've been interesting had they actually done it right...
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and Xbox Fanboys says..
and Nintendo fanboys says... death to all you sony and Microsoft traitors, viva Revolution.
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They outsold XBox 5 to 1 worldwide with noticeably inferior hardware.
And now the hardware is even (perhaps ps3 advantage), how many units will they sell? Not to mention that XBox1 had an amazing launch title in Halo1, and here we have what? Kameo? PC games? More racing games?
Console means 'Playstation' for the average guy (not the internet game-blog people) and that's who Microsoft has to win over. People aren't going to go out any buy expensive hardware so they can pay to download flash games. It's a great feature for people who own it (especially when there's been a dry spell of good games), but that's not a system seller.
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More bad news on the 360 front!
Quick deny it! 10,000 people is too small a sampling!! no DS! aahhh!! bad timing!! Deny it!!!
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The survey was of people 'on the street' right? Now most people have at least heard of sony, nintendo, playstation, game boy. They don't hear game boy evolution, or don't care. It's a game boy, or a playstation, like their kid has.
Hell, i know people who call the psp a 'game boy' and the xbox A 'playstation', emphasis on 'a' in both cases.
Still can't figure out the phantom numbers though...
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Nintendo is already competing with itself.
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Other than that I don't see anything wrong with this survey. The PlayStation is the strongest brand, it's not really surprising considering they sold 100 million PS2s vs 35 million odd Xboxes.
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The way the above chart is layed out seems like they're talking about specific consoles, rather than brand names. Regardless, it's not good research and should be taken with a few grains of salt...
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1) Playstation existed for over 12 years. It doesn't matter what number is behind Playstation, it's still a playstation, while Nintendo changes console name all the time.
2) Not as much people "recognize" xbox or xbox 360 or Revolution because a lot of them who voted "not recognizing" it are Sony fanboys.
3) Obviously, add a SONY in front of any products, most people will just say they know it.
COME ON, PSP is more reknown than GAMEBOY??? That is plain crazy. Gameboy is the most popular handheld system EVER.
They surveyed some of the most biased-toward-Sony consumers out there!
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