The intial report was from 1up & was posted on Kotaku. Unfortunately i could not get the 1up page to load so i' ll link both for your convenience

Kotaku
http://kotaku.com/gaming/how-do-i-hd/most-ps3-xbox-360-owners-unaware-of-hd-features-287579.php

1up
http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3161833

A recent NPD report on Xbox 360 and PLAYSTATION 3 owner habits reveals that only a fraction of those polled are aware of the HD visual capabilities of the machines they own. Curiously, only 30% of Xbox 360 owners are clued in to the device' s high definition graphics, compared to 50% of PS3 owners. Of the 50% knowledgeable of the PS3' s graphics prowess, only 40% of them were aware the machine' s Blu-ray playback capabilities. Only half of that particular group has watched a BRD on the device.

as i said i could not link to the original source so i cannot comment on the validity of the study, but if true it does lend credibility to my belief that HD is (currently) not as important feature to the average customer as many here believe it is.

update - After reading some of the Kotaku comments apparently the studies data was gathered after surveying around 6,000 people of ages 6 to 44. From that sample size it does seem to suggest the survey has some statistical significance. I' ll wait to read the 1up or other reports to confirm this though.

Well I read the 1up news report and ARE HALF OF THE 360 OWNERS COMPLETELY STUPID? To quote " For reference, about half polled knew about the DVD-playback potential of Xbox 360"

WTF?

Anyway, interesting report. I am wondering how those people ended up buying these consoles without knowing shit about them (considering how HD is teh shit in this generation). Makes me scratch my head a bit.

But on the other hand:
" The report is based on online survey responses from 6,260 members of NPD' s online consumer panel. These respondents, compromised of males and females ages 6 to 44, are qualified owners of at least one next generation system (PS3, PSP, Wii, NDS, Xbox 360)."
So how many of those 6,260 polled people did actually own a 360/PS3?

A little bit research digs this page up: http://www.npdor.com/
So this was all some sort of online survey anybody can participate in and, so far it seems, there is no statistical methodology behind it. So this survey can' t be seen as representative.

How could you NOT know about the HD capabilities of the 360? The video cable that comes with the thing has three extra wires hanging from it for no reason? And a switch that says " HD" on it just for funsies? The article must have either polled only 6 year olds and one 44 year old woman.

Easy to believe. HD is gaining in popularity, but it' s not common yet. It' s easy to believe that people in that broad age range barely understand what HD really is. For instance, they' ll look at a HDtv in a store and think it will make everything look that good. The need for a HD source never occurs to them.

Extra cables? They just plug up the ones they need. Those other ones are the wrong color so they don' t care what they are.

A six year old kid who gets a new console isn' t concerned with resolution. He/she just wants to play the newest game.

Nothing shocking about those numbers at all, really.

And that doesn' t make them stupid, it just means they don' t care enough to research it. It' s not a priority. They should have followed up this survey with one that asked: " Do you CARE if your console has HD?"

As a gamer one shouldn' t forget that your interest in gaming specifics is far above average. The average person couldn' t give a rat' s ass about the technical aspects of videogames. That includes stuff like framerate and resolution.

as i said i could not link to the original source so i cannot comment on the validity of the study, but if true it does lend credibility to my belief that HD is (currently) not as important feature to the average customer as many here believe it is.

You could be right, it might not matter that much to the average consumer. However, I could give a shit about the average consumer, as they are average idiots IMO. I only care about them in the aspect that they at times support consoles that I buy.

The age of 6 is kinda low. I can only assume that many of the polled people in the ages of 6-13 barely knows what HD is. That alone causes some statistical flaws.

The study took a cross section of people who own the current generation consoles, no other criteria.
It was about as unbiased a survey as you can get.

If they had taken a poll of people who go around calling themselves " gamers" or people who post in forums on gaming sites the results would have been different.

If they had polled only people who own HDtv' s the results would have been different.

The only things flawed are your expectations.



Even the difference between the PS3 number and the Xbox360 numbers is easily explained. The PS3 costs more, so the people who buy it want to know why. The easiest way to justify the price difference is built in blu-ray, so it follows that the people who chose PS3 are aware of what blu-ray is and therefore aware of what HD is.
There' s no special reason to learn about HD on 360.

True.
Why did they do this survey in the first place?

Resident evil 5 is on the 360??

ORIGINAL: Silentbomber

Resident evil 5 is on the 360??

Day and date.

lol, I was joking.

Resident evil 5 is on the 360??

Hey Silent, you can now officially go and work in the 360 games department!!!!

LMAO

" Well... now, how did you figure that out... could have sworn that was our announcement for the day... well... darndest thing I' ve ever seen."

How could you NOT know about the HD capabilities of the 360? The video cable that comes with the thing has three extra wires hanging from it for no reason? And a switch that says " HD" on it just for funsies? The article must have either polled only 6 year olds and one 44 year old woman.

That can' t be why. I asked for a composite cable for my PS1 when I was seven, because even then I realised it looked terrible through RF.

Seriously though, the majority of people in America are technically illiterate. We konw this. Ask a group of 10 people how a circuit works. Statistically speaking, 3 or less should know.

I can' t attest for the stupidity of the rest of the world, but this doesn' t suprise me.

Say what?