NPD Group announces highlights of Online Gaming 2010, the most recent report in their gaming market research, unsurprisingly showing a steady increase in time spent gaming online as well as the number of games sold through digital distribution, saying "the average number of hours spent each week on online gaming has increased 10 percent since 2009, while an average of 20 percent of all games purchased by online gamers were digitally downloaded - up from 19 percent in the 2009 study and 18 percent in the 2008 study." As they have in the past, the NPD group claims to have surveyed two-year-olds as part of this study: "Of those gamers ages 2 and older reporting that they personally play video games on at least one type of system, 54 percent report that they personally play games online, down slightly since the 2009 and 2008 studies (56 percent and 55 percent, respectively)." They also indicate the PC is the number one platform for online gaming:

The PC is still the most-used system for online gaming, with 85% of online gamers reporting using a PC for online gaming activities. Among non-PC systems, the Xbox 360 maintains its leadership for the third year in a row as the top video game system used for online gaming at 48%. In contrast to 2009, when Wii was leading over PS3 by 8 percentage points, PS3 and Wii are now neck and neck, with about 30 percent of online gamers reporting that they use each system for online gaming. This is due to an increase in use for online gaming on the part of the PS3, which increased 10 percentage points since last year. The top three systems with the highest average hrs/wk spent gaming online (using the respective systems they own) are: Xbox 360 (7.3 hrs), PC (6.6 hrs) and PS3 (5.8 hrs).