The Holiday (Video) Game Plan

How young gamers want to numb their thumbs

Once upon a time, video games had a simple appeal — kids could maneuver yellow globes that ate power pellets or help diminutive Italian men rescue princesses from gorillas.

Nowadays, of course, the games are a tad more sophisticated, but the appeal is as high as ever, with kids clamoring to get the latest releases. This holiday season will be no different, as parents prepare for an avalanche of game requests from their teens and “tweens.” According to a survey conducted by Weekly Reader Research, 90% of teens and tweens plan to ask for a game this year, so we thought it might be interesting to take a look at who wants what and for which system.

Top titles

For starters, let’s take a look at the video games that boys and girls ages 8 through 17 want most in 2008:

17% – Guitar Hero World Tour
15% – Rock Band 2
12% – Mario Kart
11% – Dance Dance Revolution Hottest Party 2

As you can see, music games rule the roost this year, although our old friend Mario does make an appearance on the list. Of course, boys and girls have slightly different tastes. Girls 8 to 13 years old are pining most for Dance Dance Revolution Hottest Party 2, with the two rock ‘n roll games close behind. Older girls gravitate more toward the faux musician games.

As for the boys, they eschew the dance games (naturally — you know most of us guys hate dancing), but love to channel their inner Eddie Van Halen with the two top-selling rock ‘n roll games. Younger boys 8 to 10 years old—as well as their older brothers 14 to 17 years old—are big on the Mario Kart driving game, while pre-teens desire Star Wars: The Force Unleashed.

Other popular games for the holidays in 2008 include Fallout 3, Gears of War 2, Dead Space, Left 4 Dead, Animal Crossing – City Folk and LittleBigPlanet.

Most popular gaming systems

In addition to the games themselves, the gaming systems that kids own varies across gender and age groups. Girls 8 to 10 and 14 to 17 years old prefer the Nintendo Wii, while tween girls lean toward the Nintendo DS. Younger boys 8 to 10 years old are partial to the Playstation 2, while boys 11 to 17 want to go with the Wii. The Nintendo DS, Xbox 360 and Gameboy Advanced are also popular systems for boys.

With so many options for both systems and games, parents are going to have plenty of choices when it comes to gaming gifts this holiday season. But just make sure you’re ready — if you can dance to it, rock out to it, shoot it, drive it or fly it, kids will want to play it come the holidays.

— Noah Belson, Content Quality Analyst

Photo courtesy of Flickr user wlodi.