The NPD Group has released results from its Games Segmentation 2008 report.  As it turns out, the PC is "used more than any single console for gaming."

Some other interesting points brought up by NPD research is that PS3 owners are likely to also have other "next-gen" consoles than Wii or Xbox 360 owners.  Only about 10 percent  of PS2 owners actually have a PS3, while 45 percent of PSP owners also own a Nintendo DS.  Inversely, only the number is halved the other way around, with only 21percent of DS owners also having a PSP.

According to Shacknews, the report uses data collected through the months of January and February.  It then seperates the North American gaming population of 174 million into seven categories:

• Young Heavy Gamers: 22%
• Seconday Gamers: 20%
• Console Games: 17%
• Offline PC Gamers: 15%
• Online PC Gamers: 14%
• Avid PC Gamers: 9%
• Extreme Gamers: 3%

The details concerning the report's methodology are as follows:

The data was collected from more than 20,000 members of NPD's online consumer panel, ages two to 65+. Responses for consumers ages six to 12 were captured by instructing a parent to take his or her child in this age range to the computer to answer the questions, either with or without the parent's assistance. Qualified respondents reported they personally play video games on a PC, on a console or portable system, or on another device such as a mobile phone. The following four key variables were used to create the gamer segments: ownership; usage; frequency; and purchased/received video games. Final survey data was weighted to represent the U.S. population of individuals ages 2 and older. Fieldwork was conducted from January 11-February 5, 2008.

Despite claiming that the PC is the most played console, NPD also pointed out that "Console Gamers, Young Heavy Gamers and Extreme Gamers are more likely to use consoles than a PC to play video games."

Across the three month period of November 2007 and January 2008, 14 percent of video games purchased were digital downloads, and Extreme Gamers were in the lead with nearly 24 titles bought in that time, which is over seven times more than the second leading purchasing segment. 

However, this doesn't actually mean that Extreme Gamers dominate the market.  "Although Extreme Gamers are heavily involved with the industry, they represent a small portion of the potential market for any new game that comes to market," NPD analyst Anita Frazier explained, "In order to promote continued growth, we must better understand all of the gaming segments."