A Small Percentage of Gamers Realize Their Consoles Play Movies?

Next Generation reported on the findings of a new report claiming that a small percentage of U.S. console owners use their machines for watching movies.

A new report finds that only a small percentage of U.S. console owners actually use their machines for watching movies–partly because many don’t even know their consoles can play DVDs.

This may be true to a degree, but I find it hard to believe that a majority of gamers don’t know that their consoles can play movies. Personally, I never use my consoles for movies, but for different reasons. I learned my lesson after burning out the laser on my PS2 and original Xbox playing movies. It’s much easier to purchase an inexpensive DVD player for less than $70.00. I currently feel that gaming consoles are for games and shouldn’t be wasted on movies. , particularly when a replacement DVD player is relatively cheap compared to a replacement game console.

…Diffusion also said that even though 80 percent of game console households own game consoles with DVD playback, a mere 30 percent stated that they own a console with DVD playback capabilities.

Diffusion said that the 30 percent figure “demonstrates how poorly many consumers understand the capabilities of today’s game consoles and a major barrier to persuading consumers to start using these platforms for non-gaming media consumption.”

I find these results extremely hard to believe. We live in a day and age where consumers are more informed than ever. Of course polls can be manipulated in many ways and are often not accurate. How many of you realize your next-gen console plays movies?