Survey: Less than half of U.S. households own dedicated game consoles

The Electronic Software Association has published results from its annual survey (with Ipsos MediaCT) of 4,000 U.S. households, and the trade body's findings suggest that dedicated game console ownership is slipping a bit in America.

According to the ESA, 48 percent of U.S. households are home to a dedicated game console, though 65 percent of said households own a device that is used to play games -- which encompasses things like PCs, smartphones and tablets.

While the ESA's report should be taken with a grain of salt, it's still interesting to note that this is the first time in years that the percentage of homes in America with dedicated game consoles has dipped below the halfway mark: through 2013, 2014 and 2015 the number remained steady at 51 percent of American households surveyed owning at least one dedicated game console.

There's some other interesting tidbits in the full report, which you can take a look at for yourself over ont he ESA website. For example (and as excerpted below) the ESA reports that of those survey respondents who identified as people who play games, 31 percent were women age 18 or older. In contrast, boys 18 or younger accounted for just 17 percent.