NPD provides stats on game promotion, platform cross-ownership
by Griffin McElroy 
{ Sep 15th 2009 at 3:00AM } 
The other bit of information (which will likely serve as ammunition in some misguided fanboy war) is a chart showing a breakdown of gaming console cross-ownership. It goes like this: Nearly 40 percent of PS3 owners also own Wiis or Xbox 360s, 18 percent of Xbox 360 owners have PS3s, and few Wii owners also possess 360s (26 percent) or PS3s (14 percent).
To see this information presented in a manner that doesn't resemble the makings of an SAT Prep logic puzzle, check out the NPD Group's press release.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
CzAr @ Sep 15th 2009 3:06AM
I'm a PS3 owner with Wii.
So is the person below me...?
Cody @ Sep 15th 2009 8:28AM
Or are you a Wii owner with a PS3?
Zhris @ Sep 15th 2009 3:09AM
I don't get it.
34% of the people who own a PS3 also own a 360.
18% of the people who own a 360 also own a PS3.
How did they come up with that math?
Trickob @ Sep 15th 2009 3:12AM
the same way they came up with... nevermind. i'm staying out of this one...
sonicspike41 @ Sep 15th 2009 3:15AM
Perhaps they are going by initial purchase? So those who bought console X first also bought console Y later. Just an idea.
rob @ Sep 15th 2009 12:54PM
Because there are more 360 owners than PS3 owners, so yeah, it makes sense since it's a percentage.
drumwiz86 @ Sep 15th 2009 3:46AM
Maybe this will help?
10 people own both ps3 and 360. = a
200 people own 360 = x
100 people own ps3. = y
so 10% (a/y) of ps3 owners own a 360
but 5% (a/x) of 360 owners own a ps3
Swagman @ Sep 15th 2009 4:04AM
That's easy.
PS3 has a smaller install base than Xbox 360. So if the same number of people owned both consoles in comparison to the install bases on each perspective console, then the % is going to vary based on that console's total install base.
Here is an example (only an example).
Say PS3 had an install base of 100
Say Xbox 360 had an install base of 200.
Say 50 people own both PS3 and Xbox 360.
If you do the math, that would mean that 50% of PS3 owners also owned Xbox 360, because the 50 people who own both consoles, is 50% of the 100 people who own PS3.
Meanwhile, applying the same math, would mean that only 25% of Xbox 360 owners also own a PS3, because the 50 people who own both consoles, is 25% of the 200 people who own Xbox 360.
The constant in both examples is the 50 people who own both PS3 and Xbox 360. The variables which change the percentages are based upon the full install base of each respective console. Expressed mathematically, it should look something like this:
PS3:
50 multi-console users divided by 100 PS3 install base, equal 50% (50 / 100 = 50%)
Xbox 360:
50 multi-console users divided by 200 Xbox 360 install base, equal 25% (50 / 200 = 25%)
In this manner, this is how 34% of PS3 owners who also own Xbox 360, equals to only 18% of Xbox 360 owners who also own both consoles.
I hope that helped.
Boff @ Sep 15th 2009 5:04AM
SoncSpike's answer was my first thought when I saw the percentages.
Spartan [Planeteer | Power of Sunshine & Lollipops] @ Sep 15th 2009 6:50AM
And you thought you would never need Venn diagrams in real life.
samfish [is sad there is no Gene in Tats v Cap =( ] @ Sep 15th 2009 9:28AM
Math is haaaard~!
Nate @ Sep 15th 2009 9:40AM
what's more confusing is that 42% of wii owners have an xbox 360.
18% of 360 owners own a wii.
that would mean that there are twice as many people who own a xbox 360 than who own a wii.
That's just plain wrong. the survey is flawed is whats wrong.
if you look at the methedology, they gave a survey to about 20,000 people on a website from anywhere from 2 years of age to whatever. Afterwards, it was weighted to the census data on age and sex. they took bad data and then skewed it.
Nate @ Sep 15th 2009 9:57AM
oops, I had my numbers mixed. 42% of 360 owners own a wii. 26% of wii owners own a 360. It's still useless info, but I messed up either way.
Courtney @ Sep 15th 2009 11:03AM
Math is delicious!
the Sawyer family @ Sep 15th 2009 3:12AM
I'm a PS3 owner with PS2 and PSP
JACK @ Sep 15th 2009 3:34AM
k
JXCgunrunna @ Sep 15th 2009 10:45AM
Sorry, there is a lot of fun you are missing out on
Stevetrop @ Sep 15th 2009 3:40AM
I keep it plain and simple with my 360. Though I do think its funny the names the cross-platform ownership has.
wii60, pswii, ps360, pswii60
BananaBoat @ Sep 15th 2009 7:58AM
I've got a WiiS360
garnsr @ Sep 15th 2009 3:50AM
I got my 360 after my PS3, but play the PS3 way more. I don't know what that says, they never call me for these studies.
esposch @ Sep 15th 2009 3:52AM
No info on handhelds?
I'd be curious to find out whether Wii owners prefer DS or PSP, and whether PS3 owners prefer PSP or DS. Personally, I have a DS, PSP and Wii. The latter of which I haven't turned on for a loooonnnnngggg time (since Little King's Story came out - excluding the odd bit of multiplayer). Just thought I'd add that in the off chance that anyone actually cares. :D
zelderman @ Sep 15th 2009 4:01AM
I do, just a little, but not to much
The Matt @ Sep 15th 2009 4:04AM
Wii owners are the least xenophobic whereas PS3 owners are the most xenophobic.
What does this mean?
Wii owners least happy PS3 owners most happy?
Pure speculation.
esposch @ Sep 15th 2009 11:20AM
I would just like to add that I disagree with his downvote. By adding "pure speculation" on the end he was implying that he was just throwing the idea up in the air, rather than being a fanboy prick.
Harold Burnett @ Sep 15th 2009 4:38AM
I wonder if the "word of mouth " are podcasts.I know for myself that nowadays I don't read many game reviews .I tend to not have the time to ,but all night at work I listen to about 6-7 podcast .
Silent Protagonist @ Sep 15th 2009 5:36AM
I bought a PS3 first and about a year or so later I wound up getting an XBox 360. I mainly got the 360 for Blue Dragon, Lost Odyssey, and Eternal Sonata. If asked, I think I would say I prefer both systems equally. In that regards, I also own a PSP and DS. Same order as well. I just happen to go where the JRPGs are. Whenever the Wii gets Arc Rise Fantasia and Metroid: The Other M, I'll eventually get one, as well.
I'm not really surprised by the survey stats. I know lot people in my area that have more than 1 console. I know that everyone has a favorite console or handheld that they gravitate towards more than the other, but it seems that more people own more than 1 console nowadays compared to any previous generation to date. I don't know what to make of that, but at least the games that are coming out are kick ass awesome.
Spartan [Planeteer | Power of Sunshine & Lollipops] @ Sep 15th 2009 6:53AM
Im a Wii owner who also has a a 360.
Also, everything catches dust.
The DS catches dust because it's broken :(
The Wii catches dust because I give all my gaming time to the 360.
The 360 catches dust because I haven't opened it in weeks
to change the disc. All I play is left 4 dead.
Fuck me, that game is addictive.
esposch @ Sep 15th 2009 7:26AM
*spits on Spartan for buying a Valve game on a console*
esposch @ Sep 15th 2009 9:34AM
Rather than downvoting me could you please explain why I had no right to spit on him? Currently all I can see is fanboyism...
Dreganfyre @ Sep 15th 2009 10:25AM
Yeah really people. Spitting on others is just one of the many wonderful freedoms our glorious nation enjoys. If they take our spit, they take our freedom!
esposch @ Sep 15th 2009 11:18AM
Yeah, but I wasn't seriously talking about spitting on him.
It was more a joke about how Valve games are always way better on PC.
Anyone think otherwise??
Markez @ Sep 15th 2009 1:51PM
Unless you can specifically articulate why L4D is a lousy experience on the 360 you should probably just get lost.
esposch @ Sep 15th 2009 10:20PM
L4D isn't a lousy experience on the consoles, but the PC version has tons of extra content that comes in the form of patches; which doesn't get released on the consoles because Microsoft charges developers money to release free patches.
The same can be said for nearly all Valve games; console Half life has no Counter Strike, console Half Life 2 has no Gmod (or Zombie panic, or Synergy etc. etc.), Console TF2 has significantly less content and balancing compared to the PC version. Console CS: Source doesn't exist. :D No real issues with console Portal though, the mods for that were pretty crap and Valve didn't release a whole lot of new content.
Plus the servers for the PC versions will ALWAYS be up, as they are hosted by fans and not a console manufacturer so you know you can play it until you no longer want to.
Plus all Valve games (with the exception of L4D which requires a $40 graphics card update...) are incredibly versatile in the hardware they can run on and ill look good on your X700s from 2004 (unlike the PS3 version of Orange Box which lags on a CPU that is as good as many modern gaming rigs). Need I go on?
I assumed this was common knowledge. I guess I was wrong.
Sorry for all hate I have sparked. Thank you Markez for being so mature.
And done!
sonicspike41 @ Sep 15th 2009 7:23AM
You know, I wouldn't mind the spamming so much if the post wasn't so annoyingly long.
esposch @ Sep 15th 2009 7:25AM
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Visit a dodgy market stall on the streets of Bangkok!
Or visit us at counterfeitclothesthatyoucanpickupoffthestreetsofbangkokfor20bahtanditsprettyobviousthisaintareallinky.com NOW!!!!
Thor @ Sep 15th 2009 7:32AM
I never trust things like this simply because they're basing it upon a small amount of people. In this case, 20,893 out of a potential 109 million worldwide console owners.
To put it into NPD terms, that would be 0.019% of the worldwide console gaming population.
Mr Mobius - the wandering artist @ Sep 15th 2009 7:39AM
It all depends how they did their study. Statistical significance, multivariate analysis etc. A small sample size doesn't need to make it useless if they ran the study well, but the smaller the sample size, the less chance of it being statistically significant.
Oh, and just to show I'm not just a stats geek, this is coming out because I'm writing an essay at the minute and have read a few papers with statistics in it.
David @ Sep 15th 2009 6:12PM
you need to take some courses in statistics, or at least read up on it. the entire point of sampling is that you can approximate the truth of what you're looking for (often to 90% or greater accuracy) by taking a randomly selected, representative sample of the greater population. obviously, no study can ever ask everyone in the world to participate. fortunately, plenty of very intelligent people have proven that we don't have to. if we want to conduct a survey of, say, the eating habits of an entire country, generally a randomly selected sample of about 1000 or so will give you the correct results to about 95% accuracy.
sam @ Sep 15th 2009 6:20PM
@Thor: Right, and that demonstrates you know nothing about statistics so we should ignore your opinion. (Yes, this is a putdown - but yes, I'm also being utterly serious.)
How many statistical surveys and posts will it take before people understand that a small sample size can represent a large population with a low margin of error? That, in fact, once you get beyond a certain population size, it's actually the *same* size sample you need? (I.e. it doesn't matter if you have 1 million or 100 million or even 100 trillion people in the population being considered, a sample size of a few thousand is going to be fine.)
Small samples are suspect when they have systematic bias (for example, if you try to do a survey on who owns which consoles, and you ask all the students at a particular university - obviously that will be biased because the answer might be different in different groups of the population other than students). But a carefully-controlled sample of, say, 500 people is going to give much better results than if you had 5,000 university students.
In other words if you want to be critical of the survey then the right response is, 'I don't think this sample is likely to be representative, because...' (an example reason might be that a survey used internet polling, and even if you correct that for demographic groups, there could still possibly be some systematic bias among people who have the internet and those who don't).
'I don't think this sample is large enough' is generally always going to be utterly wrong if it's a professional survey. They'll have done the sums; it will be large enough. But making sure that sample is actually representative can be a lot trickier.
JeezWhiz87 @ Sep 15th 2009 7:32AM
I own a single console, and a handheld. I can't justify the purchase of multiple consoles for myself as I have more games than I have time to play with just one. I can't imagine how many unopened, or unplayed games I would have with more than one console.
Filthy Assistant @ Sep 15th 2009 8:09AM
I have all 3 but does it count if this month is the first time I've touched the Wii in forever (thanks to Muramasa)?
Huey2k2 @ Sep 15th 2009 8:25AM
I have all 3 consoles.
eNrique @ Sep 15th 2009 12:51PM
cool story bro
Mr Khan @ Sep 15th 2009 8:34AM
1/4th Wii60 Cross/platform ownership isn't all that low, especially considering how many of them are supposed to be "teh casualz"
Remnants perhaps of the day when we were encouraged by Peter Moore to get both for the price of a PS3
whylekat @ Sep 15th 2009 8:35AM
Dammit I accidently upvoted it! Stupid iPhone and it's sometimes inaccurate touch sensativity!!
Muhammad Sabeeh Ali @ Sep 15th 2009 8:50AM
I have all 3 plus both handhelds. PS3 gets most time, Wii the least. PSP gets more time than DS. XBXO360 I am mostly using for netflix. PS3 mostly for my PS2 games :).
Chris D.(PSN: Aggie_CEO | XBL:The Aggie CEO | Steam: Aggie_CEO @ Sep 15th 2009 9:18AM
I own all 3....but I bought my PS3 first...THEN a Wii a year later, then a 360 6 months after that....
Nate @ Sep 15th 2009 9:51AM
The study is basically complete bs (though probably through incompetence rather than purposefully). All it takes for a study to not be accurate within the 95 percentile is for a representative sample to not be COMPLETELY random and COMPLETELY representative. I had a whole class on following a known accurate procedure to measure a known accurate and random sample, and unless you use a list of known random numbers to measure it, your data is too far off to matter.
They took a survey response off a website (already useless, as it only samples those off a website), measured given age by volunteer (also useless since so many people lie bout their age for convenience online), then weighted it to be like the US population ages 2+. yes... 2. you have 3 people who say they're 2 years old? well they get a much bigger vote thant he 30 people that are 25 years old. yup. They took very bad data, and then skewed it.
simple example :
42% of wii owners own a 360
18% of 360 owners own a wii
conclusion: there are twice as many 360 owners as wii owners
actual measurements: 52 M Wii sales, 32 M 360 sales - almost reverse.
http://nexgenwars.com/
Nate @ Sep 15th 2009 9:58AM
I looked at the chart wrong:
42% of 360 owners own a wii
18% of wii ownders own a 360.
That actually makes more sense, so they probably compiled it from actual numbers instead of asking what they own.
Either way though, the data is still useless for the reasons I provided.
mr nimblewick @ Sep 15th 2009 10:39AM
"Nearly 40 percent of PS3 owners also own Wiis or Xbox 360s, 18 percent of Xbox 360 owners have PS3s, and few Wii owners also possess 360s (26 percent) or PS3s (14 percent)."
Jeez, where's Professor Layton when you need him?