Men spend more on video games than music

LOS ANGELES - Men spend more money on video games than they do on all forms of music, research group Nielsen Entertainment said today, 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 starting to attract an older audience, with nearly a quarter of all gamers over age 40, the agency also said.

The interactive unit of Nielsen Entertainment conducted a random survey of 1500 people in January and February for its report. Nielsen Entertainment, a unit of VNU NV of the Netherlands, 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, games now rank only behind DVDs as a purchase category, ahead of CDs, digital downloads and other ways of buying music.

Nielsen also found that 23 percent of gamers own a PC, a gaming console and a gaming handheld, while 8 percent own all three major game consoles: PlayStation 2, Xbox and GameCube.

- REUTERS