PayPal data: 78% of U.S. gamers play on smartphones; PS4 edges out PC gaming

Mikeha

About 78 percent of U.S. gamers play on their smartphones, according to a survey by PayPal and SuperData Research. And about 49 percent of U.S. males play on the PlayStation 4, compared to about 48 percent who play on PC.

http://venturebeat.com/2016/11/01/paypal-data-78-of-u-s-gamers-play-on-smartphones-ps4-edges-out-pc-gaming/

laserit

My wife even plays smartphone games. She won't touch a console or a PC game. Since she can do her facebooking on her phone she has no need for a PC anymore.

SEANMCAD

Recore said:

About 78 percent of U.S. gamers play on their smartphones, according to a survey by PayPal and SuperData Research. And about 49 percent of U.S. males play on the PlayStation 4, compared to about 48 percent who play on PC.

http://venturebeat.com/2016/11/01/paypal-data-78-of-u-s-gamers-play-on-smartphones-ps4-edges-out-pc-gaming/

males?

what females dont play?

https://www.winbeta.org/news/pc-games-still-rule-consoles-mobile-2015-sales

Of that $61 billion, $32 billion was in PC gaming, $25 billion was in mobile gaming, and $4 billion was in consoles. For comparison’s sake, one estimate of worldwide movie box office gross revenue for 2015 is $26.8 billion (via boxofficemojo.com).

Octagon7711

laserit said:

My wife even plays smartphone games. She won't touch a console or a PC game. Since she can do her facebooking on her phone she has no need for a PC anymore.

I once read most people in Japan do banking and everything on their smartphones and very little on their home pc.  With all the banking, utility company, and other types of business apps, it's easy.

I'm thinking they may have filtered the results between certain age ranges to get their results.

Erinak1

DMKano said:

if you add them all up (from the chart in article) you get like 500%


in otherwords - most people have smartphones, and occasionally play a game on them. Shocking.

I don't think they were trying to say it was either or, just that 49% of gamers have bought at least 1 game on a ps4 ect, it doesnt mean that nobody is counted multiple times. I mean the whole thing is very weird, especially since it only shows the subset of people selected for the statistical analysis that used paypal, so the picture it paints is pretty worthless.

Octagon7711

And they separated the pc users into two groups laptops and desktops. The 'All' numbers look about even between ps4 and desktop, so if they hadn't separated the laptop and desktop users, than pc users should be way ahead.  

SEANMCAD

Octagon7711 said:

And they separated the pc users into two groups laptops and desktops. The 'All' numbers look about even between ps4 and desktop, so if they hadn't separated the laptop and desktop users, than pc users should be way ahead.  

basically these numbers came out just for last year, I cant imagine the sea changing radically in one year, I havent seen anything in the market that would hint at such a change https://www.winbeta.org/news/pc-games-still-rule-consoles-mobile-2015-sales Of that $61 billion, $32 billion was in PC gaming, $25 billion was in mobile gaming, and $4 billion was in consoles. For comparison’s sake, one estimate of worldwide movie box office gross revenue for 2015 is $26.8 billion (via boxofficemojo.com). Read more at http://forums.mmorpg.com/discussion/457778/paypal-data-78-of-u-s-gamers-play-on-smartphones-ps4-edges-out-pc-gaming#mkgC730IhpEVEFql.99

kitarad

It's not for accuracy it is to show trends.

Loke666

A bit fuzzy math but it support the idea that many from the casual group that started playing in the early 00s when everyone got the net have moved on from PC.

That is good, let the super-casual games be on mobile and crank up the difficulty of the PC games again. They have been make incredible easy so that casual group will like it, if they have moved on we can focus the games on the actual gamers instead of the casuals that play a little now and then.

Yeah, this might be wishful thinking but it actually seems that things are moving that way and PC gaming might very well go back towards where it was in the late 90s. That is if they devs realize that the market is changing.

Scorchien

heh .. count me out ... Still have flip phone , its free and has 6 phone numbers in it

SEANMCAD

Loke666 said:

A bit fuzzy math but it support the idea that many from the casual group that started playing in the early 00s when everyone got the net have moved on from PC.

That is good, let the super-casual games be on mobile and crank up the difficulty of the PC games again. They have been make incredible easy so that casual group will like it, if they have moved on we can focus the games on the actual gamers instead of the casuals that play a little now and then.

Yeah, this might be wishful thinking but it actually seems that things are moving that way and PC gaming might very well go back towards where it was in the late 90s. That is if they devs realize that the market is changing.

Like how home theater systems used to be (maybe still are). Different tiers for different levels of interest and income. I would be very happy if we got to a point where all the 'serious' games were on PC and everyone pretty much understood that. I think we are there with the first part but not the second part (its not commonly seen that way).

laserit

Count me in as a mobile phone gamer because I play Spider Solitaire when I sit on the shitter.

SEANMCAD

laserit said:

Count me in as a mobile phone gamer because I play Spider Solitaire when I sit on the shitter.

see that wasnt funny

laserit

SEANMCAD said:

laserit said:

Count me in as a mobile phone gamer because I play Spider Solitaire when I sit on the shitter.

see that wasnt funny

Couldn't careless of you find it funny or not, it's the truth.

SEANMCAD

laserit said:

SEANMCAD said:

laserit said:

Count me in as a mobile phone gamer because I play Spider Solitaire when I sit on the shitter.

see that wasnt funny

Couldn't careless of you find it funny or not, it's the truth.

ah well thanks for sharing!

moving on

Jimmy562

Octagon7711 said:

And they separated the pc users into two groups laptops and desktops. The 'All' numbers look about even between ps4 and desktop, so if they hadn't separated the laptop and desktop users, than pc users should be way ahead.  

It's only PS4 though isn't it? If you combine desktop and laptop then combine PS4, Xbox and Nintendo together.

Interesting data people present though. I usually see more players on consoles than PC for triple A's at least. Battlefield 1 being the latest example.

Cecropia

SEANMCAD said:

laserit said:

Count me in as a mobile phone gamer because I play Spider Solitaire when I sit on the shitter.

see that wasnt funny

I laughed. 

You really need to lighten up a bit, man. Life is too short.

Octagon7711

I think companies have been making a push to move traditional pc games to consoles (which up until Win 10 they had much more monitoring control over) that would explain all the bad ports coming across even AAA titles. Now, a lot of games put more energy into console releases.  

I would like to see numbers by OS rather than hardware types, that would be interesting.

maskedweasel

Jimmy562 said:

Octagon7711 said:

And they separated the pc users into two groups laptops and desktops. The 'All' numbers look about even between ps4 and desktop, so if they hadn't separated the laptop and desktop users, than pc users should be way ahead.  

It's only PS4 though isn't it? If you combine desktop and laptop then combine PS4, Xbox and Nintendo together.

Interesting data pretty present though. I usually see more players on consoles than PC for triple A's at least. Battlefield 1 being the latest example.

I don't find the data surprising ,there were trends showing that moving back towards consoles gaining ground on PC again, and Mobile leading the pack as much as we should expect since 2016 numbers on.  

The real thing to take into consideration is how they draw these lines.  PS4 has millions of people, and so does the XB1 and nintendo has quite a few too,  but often they count the Nintendo Handheld devices as part of the mobile pack generally.  This is slightly misleading as it is technically still a proprietary console.

The lines get muddied because it's a portable console, but, the nintendo Switch will be too,  so will that count as a console or mobile?  If it's mobile, does that mean the 3DS etc are mobile?  If its a console that should work in tandem for the 3DS too.

If counted, console sales would skyrocket as well,  but these lines do assist in generating analysis reports.

Zer0K

Octagon7711 said:

laserit said:

My wife even plays smartphone games. She won't touch a console or a PC game. Since she can do her facebooking on her phone she has no need for a PC anymore.

I once read most people in Japan do banking and everything on their smartphones and very little on their home pc.  With all the banking, utility company, and other types of business apps, it's easy.

I'm thinking they may have filtered the results between certain age ranges to get their results.

I wish that were true, but while online banking does exist in Japan, just try to go to an ATM during the monthly pay period to pull out some cash, and you'll be behind tons of people lining up to pay their bills and transfer money at the ATM.  Why they don't just set up auto-payment, or make those transfers from their PCs or Phones...  ?

SEANMCAD

Cecropia said:

SEANMCAD said:

laserit said:

Count me in as a mobile phone gamer because I play Spider Solitaire when I sit on the shitter.

see that wasnt funny

I laughed. 

You really need to lighten up a bit, man. Life is too short.

well to be fair some people are fascinated by shitter jokes I know that much. that said can we get off this tit now?

SEANMCAD

Octagon7711 said:

I think companies have been making a push to move traditional pc games to consoles (which up until Win 10 they had much more monitoring control over) that would explain all the bad ports coming across even AAA titles. Now, a lot of games put more energy into console releases.  

I would like to see numbers by OS rather than hardware types, that would be interesting.

to be fair it does depend on the title. case in point 7 days to die console version iis about as bad as laserits potty jokes but the PC version is solid

laserit

SEANMCAD said:

Cecropia said:

SEANMCAD said:

laserit said:

Count me in as a mobile phone gamer because I play Spider Solitaire when I sit on the shitter.

see that wasnt funny

I laughed. 

You really need to lighten up a bit, man. Life is too short.

well to be fair some people are fascinated by shitter jokes I know that much. that said can we get off this tit now?

Think about it

Traditionally, people would read a paper, magazine or a book when on the toilet. These days people use phones. Whether they are gaming, texting, or browsing, I'm sure a huge percentage of people are using their phones when they're sitting on the toilet.

It's one of those thing where if a person says they don't, the odds are that they are full of shit. (pun intended)

Celcius

This data serves no purpose. Most people have smart phones, so most people are going to play games on them; making the percentage absurdly high. It also counts people whom of which could be argued aren't even gamers. The amount of people playing on console being higher then PC is also not really big news, although I think the gap is far smaller then it used to be. The thing is, a ton of PC gamers also play games on console; again skewing the numbers. Morale of the story: Statistics like this serve no purpose. 

Ozmodan

Another nonsense article.  Using Paypal data is absurd.  Phones are only good for very casual gaming.

Phaserlight

Ozmodan said:

Another nonsense article.  Using Paypal data is absurd.  Phones are only good for very casual gaming.

Not really; you can also use them to play games in virtual reality.

Also, how do you account for the fact that Ars Technica has included mobile games in its "best games of the year" (measured right up against PC and console) the past four years and running?

What about games like Vendetta Online, that have kept me occupied for the past 13 years?  Hardly "casual", yet available on mobile.