If you've been seeing more game ads on television and in retail establishments, you're probably not alone. In the second quarter of the calendar year, software advertisments shot up 77% and hardware ads increased 55%, compared to the same period last year. In addition, ads for full-priced $49.99 games have been getting more exposure, taking up more of the advertising pipeline (40%) than the $19.99 budget titles.

The report also looked at the overall average prices of games for each system, and GameCube games came up the cheapest, at $26 on the average. The Xbox and PS2's average price came up at about $33 per game each. This is despite the fact that Sony offers far more $20 budget titles than Microsoft or Nintendo and their respective third parties do.