One in Four UK Households Owns a Console

With the global recession in full swing, many people are opting to stay in for their recreation instead of going out - and a recent survey found that a quarter of all households in the United Kingdom owned at least one gaming console.

These days, people have fewer spending money than they used to. In a survey conducted by Harris Interactive, over 2,000 households in the UK showed a growing preference for at-home entertainment. Why go out to the movies when a ticket is at least 10 USD per person for two hours of entertainment - not counting snacks - and you can get more than that at home for cheap?

Bad news for movie theaters, maybe, but good news for game retailers. Between November and February, 5% of those polled had purchased a Nintendo Wii - and Harris' final numbers indicate that at this point, 23% of all homes in the UK have a games console. Now, it isn't quite as impressive as one in five Japanese people owning one particular brand of handheld, but those are some pretty impressive numbers.

It's unclear whether or not Harris Interactive was just counting current-gen consoles, or whether older generations would count - if the former, one would imagine that the actual number would be even higher than that.

"Brits have been taking advantage of the heavily discounted sales both before Christmas and in the first part of 2009," said Harris' research director Steve Evans. "It seems that the investment in home entertainment will mean people saving money by staying in, and preparing for some tough months ahead."

(MCV, via CVG)