According a report published by Nielsen, the Wii is the least played console. In fact, older consoles such as the PlayStation 2 and Xbox are being played more than Nintendo’s crown jewel.
In Nielsen’s ‘The State of the Video Gamer,’ the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 are the most used consoles in the US with the highest active user percent. Coming in second place is Sony’s PlayStation 2 and Microsoft’s Xbox. Nielsen says that primary users of these older consoles play at least once a week for more than an hour.
Nintendo’s Wii and GameCube got the smallest numbers in terms of daily average number of sessions, average usage days, and active user percent. Predominant users of the Wii and GameCube are likely to use these consoles, at most, once a week and for fewer minutes and the fewest number of sessions compared to the other consoles.
In addition, looking at the total usage minutes across all consoles for 2008, Nielsen has found that PlayStation 2 had the largest installed base and still leads all other consoles. PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3, and Microsoft’s Xbox usage minutes are trending down for the year, while the Xbox 360, Wii and GameCube usage minutes are trending upward.
The source for console metered data is Nielsen’s National People Meter (NPM) sample of more than 17,000 US television households. When metering sample households, Nielsen monitors not just television activity on all metered televisions but the usage of any device attached to the television including video game consoles.
To read the report, click here.
