Only 4% of US Gamers 'Pirate'

NPD's Games Acquisition Monitor quarterly report into gaming in the States is out and includes a figure of six million gamers who admitted to pirating games.

That's 4% of the gamers asked and who responded. In this case, however, piracy is tightly defined: "Piracy, defined for this report as downloading files through Peer-to-Peer (P2P) networks, is small relative to the music industry. However, 4 percent of gamers, representing just over 6 million consumers, indicated that they downloaded files from P2P networks, with 72 percent of pirated downloads occurring for PC/Mac", says the report.

On another note, we're told that, "Throughout Q3’09, PC/Mac and console gaming were the most popular platforms among gamers, followed by portable systems and cell phones. While smartphones ranked among the lowest in terms of gaming, cross-usage patterns reveal that users of XBox 360, PSP and DSi gaming devices showed notably higher cross-usage of the iPhone and iPod Touch for gaming as compared to users of other platforms."