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Salt Lake City Market is U.S. Gaming Capital

Known worldwide as the hometown to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and the Mormon religion, Salt Lake City now apparently has another reason for global notoriety.

Scarborough Research, a leading consumer research firm measuring the lifestyle and shopping patterns, media behaviors and demographics of American consumers, released an analysis which finds that Salt Lake City, UT, is the number one local U.S. market for households that own a video game system.

Thirty-two percent of households in Salt Lake City, UT, own a video game system. Lexington, KY, Flint, MI, and Toledo, OH, follow close behind Salt Lake City with 30 percent of households in these cities owning a video game system.

Nationally, 24 percent of households own a video game system. Nationally, the number one audio/video store for Video Gaming Households is Wal-Mart. Thirty-three percent of all households nationally that own a video game system have made a purchase there in the past year.

Best Buy (30 percent), Target (16 percent), Circuit City (15 percent) and Radio Shack (7 percent) complete the top five audio/video stores for Video Gaming Households. In Salt Lake City, Wal-Mart is also the number one audio/video store among Video Gaming Households.

Forty-three percent of these households in Salt Lake City have made an audio/video item purchase at Wal-Mart in the past year. Best Buy (23 percent), Target (12 percent), Circuit City (11 percent) and Costco (10 percent) complete the top five audio/video stores for Salt Lake City Video Gaming Households.

The top audio/video stores among Salt Lake City Video Gaming Households, are similar to those nationally. Four out of the top five audio/video stores are the same. However, Video Gaming Households in Salt Lake City are 82 percent more likely than all households nationally to have made an audio/video item purchase at Target in the past year.

They are 49 percent more likely than all households nationally to have made an audio/video item purchase at BestBuy. Keeping in mind that the most popular video games tend to contain extreme levels of graphic violence, this latest research sheds new light on the obvious and continued paradox inherent within American popular culture.

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