Paul Tassi  Paul Tassi, Contributor  News and opinion about
video games, technology and the internet  3/06/2013 @ 12:25PM
|2,744 views  NPD Says Core Gamers are Numerous and Older Than
You Think  NPD has put together a study of that rare beast of
“core” gamers we hear about so often these days. That’s likely
to included many of you reading this, so listen up, you’re going
to learn some things about yourself.  First, they tell us what
makes a core gamer, because that’s an issue which has been
debated for a while now. The answer for them is anyone who has
played an action/sports/shooter/racing game on an
Xbox/PlayStation/PC/Mac for more than five hours a week. Seems
like a good enough classification to me, and it’s one a large
amount of people fall into.  NPD estimates that half the
population of the US currently plays games on a “core” device,
though only 14% (37.5M) of the population meets the criteria to
be a “core” gamer. Forty-five minutes of Dance Central a week
just doesn’t count, I guess. 9-17 year-olds