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Epoch on 11 March 2009
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Gnizmo said:

Epoch said:

"The report is based on online survey responses from just over 20,000 members of NPD’s online consumer panel ages 2 and older"

From the Methodology section of their press release.

So now we're assuming that the 20,000 people polled all play electronic games?  I was assuming it was general population.  That would be a major difference.

I used the x360 to work with because it is one of the few pieces of actual data given in the original statement.  However, as you say, without knowing how many people actually responded, we can't determine much.

At least we seem to agree that the press release doesn't seem to be saying a whole lot, other than that online gaming is up.

 

 Wow I read that direct line and missed it last night. I should sleep more often. But my point was that your Xbox 360 numbers are based on something we don't know. The 360 only has 50% of the console online gaming market. They never said how big that specific market was within the set of 20,000. It could be 50% of the 20,000 or of 2,000. In other words they did the classic tactic of releasing a percentage without any hard number to back it up.

 "Respondents had to personally play video games on a PC, video game system or device used for gaming." Also from the methodology section. Definitely only the gaming population.

Exactly.  That hit the nail on the head right there.  Well said.

I think I understand where the confusion comes from, and it is because I assumed the 20,000 people polled were a random sample.  I think you're right, and that it is 20,000 gamers they contacted from their database. My mistake, and my apologies.

Interestingly, only 25% of those 20,000 game online on a console, or at least thats what I get from this: "According to Online Gaming 2009, the most recent report from leading market research company, The NPD Group, online gaming for video game consoles and portables enjoyed a statistically significant increase from 19 percent in 2008 to 25 percent in 2009".  I would have thought the percentage would be higher.  That means that 75% of those polled only play online on a PC.  This could be due to sample bias though.

Thanks for pointing that out about the data sample, wish I had realised what that meant earlier, could have saved myself alot of effort.