• by Emily Burg , March 12, 2007

Research firm Nielsen Co. is reporting that more that 45.7 million, or two-fifths of television households, also have a gaming console--up from 38.6 million in 2004. That 18.5% rise accompanies only a 1.6% growth in television households during the same time period.

That creates a huge opportunity for marketers to look to this medium as a way to broadcast their messages. While branded product integration within video games has become a standard practice, the integration of Internet access with game consoles presents a compelling opportunity to run live ads during video games. Nielsen reports that the number of game consoles connected to the Internet has increased to 4.4 million households, and is expected to grow.

Sony announced last week it will be adding online capabilities to the PlayStation 3, enabling the sharing of user-generated gaming content. The new service, called PlayStation Home, allows Sony to compete with similar offerings from Microsoft, whose Xbox Live platform is the paradigm of gaming-oriented Internet connectivity.

According to Nielsen's "The State of the Console" report, game console usage among the general U.S. population is on the rise. Between Sept. 18 and Dec. 31, 2006, 98.3 million people used a game console at least once for a minute or more.

During any average minute of the day, roughly 1.6 million people in the U.S. are using a game console, the report found--not taking into consideration the enormous popularity of portable game consoles like the Nintendo DS, which rivals MP3 players and cell phones for ubiquity among the young, male demographic.

Two-thirds of households among the key 18-34 male demographic have game consoles--a number likely to grow given strong holiday sales.

Nintendo says it had sold 1.25 million Wii consoles in North America by the end of 2006, with the goal of shipping 6 million worldwide by March 31. Rival Sony had shipped 2 million PlayStation 3 units worldwide by mid-January, and also predicts a global shipment of 6 million by March 31.

Shipments of Microsoft's Xbox 360 video game console reached 10.4 million worldwide for 2006, besting the company's estimates of 10 million. Microsoft predicts it will ship between 13 million and 15 million Xboxes by June 30, which marks the end of its fiscal year.