NPD Says Half Of All Americans Are Gamers

There’s probably a lot of solitaire and online bridge-playing padding that, but a new NPD report says 170 million Americans play video games. The U.S. population is 304 million.

The result is inside NPD’s 2009 Gamer Segmentation Report, and is based on a January survey of nearly 21,000 people. NPD breaks the population down into seven segments, the largest being Secondary Gamers, at 33.6 million. These are mostly female gamers who play less than four hours a week, none of it on a console.

Console gamers, mostly male, are the next largest and fastest-growing segment, at 32.9 million. Then comes Heavy Portable Gamers, heavy describing the amount of play, not their weight. Which is a good thing, most of their 30 million are kids. (Their average age is 19. Ni-ni-ni-ni-nineteen.)

GameSpot broke down the report further. But you get the idea. Video games are everywhere – even someone who doesn’t consider himself or herself a gamer, but plays a flash game at work, is a gamer for purposes of this study. So, yay us.

U.S. Gamer Population: 170 Million [GameSpot via Blue's News]