Hardcore Gamers Still Using Consoles Despite PS5 and Xbox Shortages

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Ahead of the holiday season, and a year after the latest generation of Xbox and PlayStation consoles entered the market, the PS5, Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S are still incredibly difficult to acquire thanks to the global chip shortage. Some PS5 models (which retail for $400 or $500, depending on the model) are selling on eBay for $10,000 or more. 

But even though new systems are scarce, Morning Consult polling shows that more than 3 in 5 gamers under 35 and just over half of avid gamers are using consoles — with many spending hundreds of dollars a year on their gaming habits.

How gamers are spending

  • Roughly 3 in 10 gamers said they spend more than $100 annually on video games and consoles. About a fifth of gamers are spending that sum on accessories and in-game purchases, though pluralities spend $50 or less on those gaming items during the course of the year. 
  • Half of console gamers are spending top dollar on games and consoles. Console gamers were more likely than PC gamers or avid gamers to say they spend more than $100 a year on video games and consoles, but nearly a third of both PC gamers and console gamers said they’re spending an equal amount to purchase accessories or in-game add-ons. 
  • Gamers are most likely to download games for free. Roughly 3 in 5 gamers said they download games for free. But if they have to pay, they’re more likely to buy them online (42 percent) than to purchase a hard copy (27 percent). Fewer than 10 percent of gamers rent either virtual or physical copies of games, a method that was once popular at brick-and-mortar stores like Blockbuster in the 1990s.
  • Even as some gamers shell out big money for industry products, most think prices need to change. While the video game industry raked in an estimated $174.53 billion globally last year, according to S&P Global, at least 70 percent of gamers said that prices for consoles and accessories need to change. That share rises to 3 in 4 among avid gamers, ranking above hot-button topics such as microtransactions, loot boxes and toxicity in online communities in requiring change. 

The poll was conducted Oct. 12-15, 2021, among 1,604 U.S. adults who say they play video games, with a margin of error of plus or minus 2 percentage points.

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