According to NPD, and their latest report, Core Gaming 2013, within the US population ages 9 and older, almost half play video games on core gaming device.

• Only 14 percent, or 37.5 million people, would be considered a core gamer*
• Ages 9-17 are most likely to be a core gamer (26 percent)
• Ages 18-34 are the next largest group of core gamers (21 percent)

Over the past year

• 88 percent of core gamers state they purchased new physical games
• 78 percent purchased physical used games
• 70 percent purchased digital full games

*Core Gamers were described as playing Action, Adventure, Fighting, Flight, Massively Multi-Player, Racing, Real Time Strategy, Role-Playing, Shooter, or Sport games on a PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, PC or a Mac, and spending 5 hours or more per week gaming on any of these devices.

IDC put out a new research report ”The Worldwide Video Game and Entertainment Console Hardware and Packaged Software 2012–2016 Forecast” with some interesting takeaways from analyst Lewis Ward, including:

• PS3 has shipped an estimated 77 million bundles
• Xbox360 has shipped approximately 76 million bundles

IDC estimates:

• Nintendo’s Wii U will exceed 50 million bundles by year-end 2016
• The volume of packaged game discs shipped will decline an average of roughly 3% per year through 2016
• Eighth-generation console tie ratios will be approximately 25% lower than the tie ratios of seventh- or current-generation consoles

IESherpa Opinion – Although the number of physical games bought will decline, the number of digital games will likely increase at a faster rate, resulting in net growth for the games industry overall. Either way, we have another three years to see if this is correct and a lot can happen between now and then.

• Sony has sold 70 million PlayStation 3 units worldwide into retail as of November 4, 2012
• The PlayStation Move motion controller surpassed 15 million units sold in worldwide as of November 11, 2012

Steve Ballmer released numbers on the success of Xbox 360 at CES this week according to GamesIndustry.biz. the worldwide numbers are now:

• 50 Million Xbox 36o consoles sold
• 30 Million gamers on Xbox Live
• 8 Million Connects sold

Sony announced in their press conference that there are:

• 60 Million PSN accounts

Although Sony has more accounts, I believe that there is higher engagement on Xbox Live since the players tend to be more core on Xbox and play more often according to everything I know and have heard.

According to NPD, October saw the following hardware sales in the U.S.:

Wii – 507,000 units

PlayStation 3 (PS3) – 321,00 units

Xbox 360 – 250,000 units

We would expect all of these numbers to rise for the holidays. While Wii is selling pretty well, the deep discounting retailers are putting on bundles, including $300 configurations for PS3 and 360 will push those platforms for the holidays. Also, given the fact that the $300 price point was where the PS2  really took off as a DVD player that also played games a decade ago, the Blu-ray capabilities of the PS3 are now priced at a mainstream consumer price where we should see adoption increase. It’s not a cheap Blu-ray system and will likely benefit from Blu-ray movie discounting this holiday season, as well as inexpensive HDTVs.

Video Business has an article today talking about the PS3 and it’s appeal as a Blu-ray player.

• NPD Group said 34% of PS3 owners had never tried to watch a Blu-ray movie on their PS3
• The number of people watching Blu-ray is higher than the number that watched DVDs on the PS2 at the same point in the lifestyle.
• 58% bought the PS3 to play games
• 34% bought the PS3 for games and Blu-ray movies equally
• 8% bought the PS3 mostly for Blu-ray movies

According to an interview with Eurogamer, Turbine’s revenue estimates for 2011 suggest that the PC MMO market will be worth $2 billion

The company expects the Console MMO market to be relatively untapped in 2011 and estimate it to be worth $2.3 billion in revenue.

SCEA’s director of PSN operations and strategic operations said that the PSN userbase is: