Nielsen: PlayStation Web Traffic Down 8 Percent Over Last Year

New data from Nielsen/NetRatings has suggested that unique traffic to Sony's PlayStation.com website has decline 8 percent over the past year as visitors continue to flock to Nintendo's home page, while also noting that more than one third of U.S. adults online own a video game console of some sort. According to the report, 36.5 percent of U.S. adults who are also online own a game console, while 15.9 percent own a handheld game console. The report also found that most of these console owners, 71 percent, are married, and 66 percent have at least one child in the home. The report also found that Nintendo’s website has continued to draw the most visitors compared to other console manufacturers in February – with more overall traffic than Sony Computer Entertainment's site and Microsoft's Xbox website. According to the report, Nintendo.com traffic has increased 91 percent, from 856,000 in February 2006 to 1.6 million in February 2007. The number of unique visitors to Sony's Playstation.com website dropped 8 percent in the same period, from 1.1 million to 1.0 million unique visitors, while Xbox.com visits climbed 47 percent from a unique audience of 827,000 to 1.2 million over the past year. Among retail websites, the report found that the video game portion of Best Buy's website saw the highest concentration of game console owners, who comprise 90 percent of the site's audience. Amazon's video game site and Gamestop.com rank a close second and third, with console owners comprising 89 and 88 percent of their unique visitors, respectively. Besides playing video games, Nielsen/NetRatings found that console owners most prefer to visit theme parks, while collecting comic books, dolls and other figurines ranked high on the list of personal interests. Looking to preferred vacation activities, console owners were found to be most fond of going to theme parks, followed by water sports and major sporting events. "As game consoles have become increasingly sophisticated, families have incorporated them into their centralized home media centers, which include the television, digital recording device, digital music player, and the PC," said Carolyn Creekmore, senior director of media analytics, Nielsen//NetRatings. "Video game technology will only benefit other media, since what makes a video game fun and exciting brings life to movies and music as well. Companies that can leverage these new technologies across a number of products will have a distinct advantage in the competitive marketplace."