Kids play *less* games?

Gamasutra is reporting on the Piper Jaffray report that more teens use PlayStation2 than any other platform (though they expect the X box to dominate the market in the coming years, and that teens think they play less games.

In addition, in an interesting insight into teen trends, 65 percent of student households own Sony's PlayStation 2, 50 percent own Microsoft's Xbox and just 26 percent own Nintendo's GameCube. GameStop was recognized in the survey as the leading retailer for pre-owned video games with 60 percent market share, and 29 percent market share for new video game purchases.

Finally, and perhaps most controversially, the survey also revealed that, in the sample of North American teenagers that Piper Jaffray surveyed, 75 percent of teens say that their interest in video games is declining, and 78 percent indicated they spent less time playing in 2005.

Of course, as an academic, I wonder if teens interest in video games really is declining, or if their *perception* is that their interest is declining. They can say they are less interested, but still rank it as a top pass time.