Gamers and HD

1up.com reports on lack of HD awareness among PS3 and XBOX 360 gamers:

If so few are even aware of the HD functions, how many who are in-the-know are even taking advantage of it? Speaking anecdotally, my Dad picked up an HDTV a few years ago from Costco and every time I'm home, he's watching everything in SD because he doesn't know better. To him, he's watching TV on the "HDTV" and actually switching to a HD-capable channel doesn't cross his mind -- it's the illusion of having the HDTV feature that makes him think he's actually watching a better picture. In fact, he's making standard definition look worse!

This is a reminder to the hard-core graphics nuts (myself included...I've got my 360 set up for 1080i on my tube HDTV set, and generally stick to the HD channels on FiOS TV unless there's nothing on that's HD) that not everyone shares our preferences or obsession with the best graphics. Nintendo figured that out with the Wii...fun and good gameplay can trump fantastic graphics.

The good news for us is that there's plenty of fun stuff on the 360 (guitar hero, lots of great casual games on XBOX Live Arcade), and more on the way, like the movie trivia game Scene It, which is coming out later this year.

The survey, while probably not representative of all gamers, is a reminder that we don't just need to think we know what gamers want, we need to be sure, and then we probably need to double-check.

Any PS3 or 360 owners out there want to tell me what you think of their HD capabilities? Do you use them to watch movies? Do you have them set for optimal HD output for your TV? Or is HD still just a buzzword for you?

NPD: 30% of Xbox 360 Owners Aware of HD Graphics news from 1UP.com