Men Spend More on Video Games Than Music, Research Group Says

Men spend more money on video games than they do on all forms of music, research group Nielsen Entertainment said Thursday, lending credence to a growing belief that video games are displacing other forms of media for the attention of young men.

Video gaming in general is beginning to attract an older audience, with nearly a quarter of all gamers older than 40, the agency also said.

The interactive unit of Nielsen Entertainment conducted a random survey of 1,500 people in January and February for its report. Nielsen Entertainment, a unit of the Dutch firm VNU, is best known for its benchmark SoundScan music sales service. Its corporate sibling, Nielsen Media Research, is the standard for TV ratings.

For males, Nielsen said, video games rank behind only DVDs as a purchase category, ahead of CDs, digital downloads and other methods of buying music.

Nielsen also found that 23% of gamers own a personal computer, a video game console and a hand-held video game device, while 8% own all three major game consoles: Sony Corp.’s PlayStation 2, Microsoft Corp.’s Xbox and Nintendo Co.’s GameCube.