The average number of hours spent per week on online gaming is up 10 percent, to 8 hours a week, according to the results of a study released by the NPD Group today.

"While the percentage of the population that reports playing games has declined slightly, this study details other metrics which point to both stability and growth in both online and offline gaming," said Anita Frazier, industry analyst, The NPD Group.

The PC remains the most-used system for online gaming, according to the report, with 85 percent of online gamers reporting using a PC for online gaming activities.

New York Comic Con Announces Enormous Growth of Videogame Exhibitors at 2009 Show

Officials Note 50 Percent Increase in Gaming Presence Since '08

NORWALK, Conn. - Jan. 27, 2009 - New York Comic Con (NYCC) has today revealed details of its videogame industry attendance for the upcoming 2009 NYCC, which will take place February 6 – 8 at the Jacob K. Javits Center in New York City. NYCC officials note that videogames have become a huge part of show planning and that the videogame section has become the single largest growth area for NYCC since 2008. Major exhibitors from the videogame industry will be displaying their products and introducing their latest games to thousands of eager fans in booths that will occupy over 11,000 square feet of exhibit space. This represents a 50 percent increase in exhibit space for videogames as compared to 2008.

Tickets and programming information for New York Comic Con are accessible at www.nycomiccon.com and more personal insights and anecdotes about the show are available via Show Manager Lance Fensterman’s blog, www.MediumAtLarge.net.

“I am enormously pleased and gratified to see how much and how fast our videogame component has grown since last year,” notes Fensterman. “From the get go, one of our principal goals at New York Comic Con has been to build on our core interest, which is comics, by expanding outwards to include other interests. This is what defines us as a true pop culture event. We provide a wide range of stimulating activity which commands the attention of our many fans. I couldn’t be happier that videogaming is now taking a leading role in all of this.”

Some of the prominent companies and the games they will be featuring at NYCC include:

Activision: Leading worldwide videogame publisher Activision will have a robust presence at New York Comic-Con, showcasing some of this year's most anticipated videogames including their 2009 Marvel video game lineup with X-Men Origins: Wolverine and Marvel: Ultimate Alliance 2 as well as PROTOTYPE™.

Here we have the top five sellers for every available platform in the United States, Japan, and Europe, providing an important update of sales patterns worldwide.

This week's charts, with data taken from October 25th, 2007, show Wii Play is still dominating the Nintendo platform, Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction is leading in PS3 software popularity in North America, while Pro Evolution Soccer 2008 dominates multiple platforms in the UK. Data for these top-5's comes courtesy of the public sales information on Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk, and Amazon.co.jp, with sales split out for each platform and territory, and pre-orders disregarded as reported by www.gamasutra.com/. More...