Children and baby boomers in Canada are buying video games in droves, with the market expanding well beyond teenage boys, a new consumer report says.

The NPD Group, a market research company with headquarters in Port Washington, N.Y., said children are buying video games at younger ages in Canada while baby boomers are continuing to buy video games or have resumed doing so.

The teenage boy is no longer the "quintessential gamer," the report says.

"We were surprised to find that the standard of the classic young male as a video game enthusiast has forever changed," Matthew Tattle, spokesman for NPD's Canada Games group, said Wednesday in Toronto.

"With the increasing adoption of a digitally based lifestyle by the majority of consumers, it was only a matter of time before we would see gaming become part of the mainstream."

The report is based on a survey of 16,774 respondents in Canada between June 13 and 30. The respondents included children between the ages of six and 17, whose responses were recorded with the help of parents.

The report found the video gaming market has changed significantly over the past few years, with specific kinds of gamers boosting sales in the areas of portable, PC and console gaming.

It outlines seven "primary gaming segments" that represent gamers in Canada. They include extreme gamers, who play on average 49 hours a week and own two consoles and at least one portable, and offline PC gamers, who play a total of 10 hours a week and are the oldest of the segments with an average age of 40.

The other types of gamers are casual console gamers, portable gamers, console gamers, casual PC gamers and heavy PC online gamers. They are defined according to amount of time spent playing video games and the machines they use to play.

In Canada, the video game software market had revenues of $617 million from December 2007 to May 2008. Console gamers made up the largest share of sales, followed by portable gamers and extreme gamers.

The market is diverse but healthy, because the research shows that Canadians are embracing gaming technology, Tattle said.

"The gaming industry is alive and well in Canada, with all signs indicating increased growth in the coming months and years," he said.