Gamers fail to exploit USP of DS and PSP

Nintendo and Sony have no doubt spent a fair bit of time making their portable consoles as practical as possible for playing on the move. They've probably spent months developing scratch-resistant, anti sun-glare screens, batteries with as long a life as possible and consoles slim and light enough to slide effortlessly into a back pocket.

Unfortunately, a poll of iPhone, DS and PSP owners conducted by NPD Group (and reported by Kotaku) has revealed they might as well not have bothered, since 79 per cent of those quizzed say they use their portable console at home more often than any other place.

And a quick poll of the Pocket Gamer staff that I just carried out revealed a near identical result, with 80 per cent of us playing them at home - well, in bed to be more precise. Rob is clearly the least lazy, as he manages to leave the house often enough to make public transport his most common place to play games. Two admit that in the past they sneaked off and played games at work, which probably proves people who want to be games writers make terrible employees.

Back to further and slightly more scientific information from the NPD Group survey, 92 per cent of Nintendo DS owners were found to play mostly single player games, spending on average 4.6 hours a week on them. Only just under a quarter regularly play multiplayer games. It's good to hear DS owners are making good use of their console's capabilities. Next we'll probably find out only a third use the top screen.

Anyway, feel free to tell us below where you most commonly play yours - the weirder the place, the better.