New NPD study shows that online gaming on consoles and handhelds in the US grew from 19% in 2008 to 25% in 2009, while PC remains largely majoritary, at 87% versus 90% last year (this last figure via ArsTechnica).

That would give a graph like that if we understand it right :

Amongst consoles, 50% of console online gamers played on Xbox360, while Wii was growing from 18% to 29%, and PS3 came third.

Various bits from different sources – some of them are a bit old, but then we just opened the blog :

• November Steam Hardware Survey (which is skewed towards “gamers” system in comparison to general PC user base)- shows DX10 system (DX10 capable GPU + Vista) accounts for 21% of Steam user base – in progress, but DX8, 9 and older GPU systems are still the majority (54%). On the other hand, multi-core is now majoritary (60%, with 10% quad-core).
• Speaking of Steam, the new beta version is integrating an in-game web browser. It’s good to see that multi-tasking is now embraced more and more. It looks better than Rogue, but less adavanced than PlayXpert (but they have all the other Steam features they can integrate with).

• Is the VC model broken? (It’s been published a while ago, but still interesting to watch. Can it mean an opportunity for the few cash-rich publishers to play a bigger role in funding?). Also, don’t miss Jussi’s and Adam’s article about online-game related VC investment defying dowturn in October.
• Street Fighter HD designer reveals console patch frustration. He states that it’s ok because SF is an old game and very little testing was required, but otherwise he would have been forced to test it on PC…