Handheld Gaming Survey: Consumers Prefer Devices With Multiple Purposes

The global gaming market is growing, according to data from Newzoo. And as mobile technology grows, handheld games might also become more relevant. In fact, a new gaming console from Nintendo, slated for release next month, offers a combination between a traditional gaming console and a handheld gaming console. So how many consumers are interested in handheld gaming? We asked 1,000 respondents about this sector of the gaming industry and their thoughts on future growth.

Gaming Industry

In Ask Your Target Market’s latest online survey, 37% of respondents said that they’ve played video games, including console games, mobile games, smartphone games and social media games within the past day. 12% have played video games within the past week. 7% have within the past month. 5% have within the past three months. 4% have within the past year. 5% said that they last played video games over a year ago. And 31% said they aren’t video gamers at all. Of those who play video games at least on occasion, 47% said that they regularly play smartphone or tablet games. 44% play PC games. 29% play console games. 25% play social media games. And 15% play mobile console games.

Future Purchases

Looking forward, just 28% of respondents said that they are at least somewhat likely to purchase new gaming consoles within the next five years. Nintendo, Microsoft’s Xbox and Sony Playstation were the top brands mentioned by those respondents.

Handheld Gaming

In addition, 18% of respondents said that they are at least somewhat likely to purchase mobile gaming consoles in the next five years. Among those respondents, Nintendo was by far the most popular brand. But some respondents also mentioned other brands like Apple, Playstation, Xbox and Samsung.

Key Takeaways

Based on people’s gaming habits, it seems that today’s consumers are most likely to go for gaming devices that can also serve other purposes, like smartphones, tablets or even PCs. And since there are so many options for gaming on those devices, it could potentially contribute to a decline for consoles that are dedicated to video games and don’t serve any other purpose. However, a hybrid console like the one Nintendo is about to release could potentially be a way to convince more consumers to purchase dedicated consoles, since it at least offers a couple of different gaming styles. Additionally, gaming companies could potentially entice more consumers by offering gaming options on other platforms like smartphone apps and social media to get them invested in those game options, then offer more fully featured versions on dedicated consoles. You can view the complete survey results in the widget below and be sure to click “Open Full Report” to take advantage of all the chart and filter options.Photo Credit: Handhelds by Greg Dunlap under CC BY 2.0What do you want to know? If you need some consumer insights on a particular topic, let us know in the comments below and we’ll consider it for an upcoming survey post.

Results were collected on January 11-17 via AYTM’s online survey panel.