According to the study, 23% of US console gaming dollars go to pre-owned games while 12% goes towards digital content. Europeans, on the other hand, are apparently less likely to make such purchases. In Europe, 20% of console game spending goes towards pre-owned titles while 9% goes to downloadable games.
85% of both PC and console gamers in the US admit that they will occasionally purchase used games. 25% of them state they get most of their games used. Digital downloads are less widespread, as 54% of the estimated 36M American gamers buy digital games, spending on average $49 a year on it. Using simple match, that accounts for nearly a billion US dollars in purchases in 2011.
One of the criticisms of the NPD has been its traditional lack of accounting for digital sales in its reports. However, last October the NPD did report that it estimated that revenue of “non-new-retail”, which includes used games, rentals, subscriptions, social and mobile games as well as digital titles, accounted for 40-45% of the total video game market in the first half of 2010.