The Nielsen Media Research group, better known for saying what the American public watched on TV, has released some research on "usage minutes" for games consoles in the US last year (Jan-Oct). It turns out that Sony's PlayStation 2 still leads the way, accounting for 31.7% of the time spent console gaming. However, the Xbox 360 (17.2%) came second, ahead of Nintendo's Wii (13.4%). Even more embarrassing for Sony, the original Xbox (9.7%) beat the PlayStation 3 (7.3%). PC World comments:
Everyone thinks no one's playing the Wii. They're wrong. The 360 can claim the slightly higher usage-to-units ratio, but the Wii leapt from 5.5% in 2007 to 13.4% in 2008, a notably larger increase than the 360's 11.8% to 17.2%.
The PS3? Its usage increase (2.5% in 2007 to 7.3% in 2008) was actually commensurate with the 360's. Still, Sony's got a year to really get the lead out if it doesn't want to be this generation's GameCube.
The top PC game was World of Warcraft, which was being played for 671 minutes a week. However, its share dropped from 1,023 minutes last year -- a plunge of 17 hours to 11 hours. However, the launch of Wrath of the Lich King may have changed that since.
The top 10 for Mobile Games in last year's third quarter -- a new category -- was headed by a stunning game called Tetris (based on carrier-billed revenues). It's interesting that people are happy to pay rather than carry around an old Game Boy. Also, I wonder if any of the carriers have figured out they could make even more money by making Tetris just a little easier…
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