Nielsen's List of Most Played Consoles of 2008

[unwinddesign]

According to this Nielsen study from mid 2007:

Wii = 102.6 minutes per day usage

Xbox 360 = 134.2 minutes per day usage

That's a difference of 25%...or 31.6 minutes per day. An extra half hour doesn't seem like a huge deal to me.

No one said it was a big deal. It's just interesting that with all the talk about "omgz wii domination" that it isn't played as often as the Xbox 360. I have no idea why you quoted those numbers, they just prove the point even more. Now, at the end of 2008, there are even more Wiis out there, and they aren't being played any more than they were before. This could lead one to a few interesting hypotheses.

1) The Wii demographic is different.
2) The Wii has less lengthy games than the 360.
3) Wii owners purchase less games.

Protip: Never use VGchartz for sales numbers, they are mostly made up.

Current US hardware numbers (source NPD)

Wii: 15,391,000
360: 12,449,000
PS3: 6,062,000

And Japan for the hell of it (source Famitsu)

Wii: 7,212,966
PS3: 2,537,348
360: 732,947

Those numbers are old. The 15.19 million number is from September 30th. That's from Nintendo's balance sheet, by the way.

http://www.nintendo.co.jp/ir/pdf/200...0e.pdf#page=11

They sold a shit load of Wiis in October, November and December. 800,000 in October and 2 million in November. Add that to the 15.19 total...and you have 18 million. And that's not including December, biggest holiday shopping season of the year.

[dbiersdorf]

http://www.nintendo.co.jp/ir/pdf/200...0e.pdf#page=11

They sold a shit load of Wiis in October, November and December. 800,000 in October and 2 million in November. Add that to the 15.19 total...and you have 18 million. And that's not including December, biggest holiday shopping season of the year.

2006: 1.08 million
2007: 6.29 million
2008: 8.00 million (as of November)

Which I rounded and you get a total of 15.37 million. Did you even read the link you provided? The numbers they provide are shipped, not sold. Sold data in the United States is widely available, go look it up yourself and you'll get the same numbers as me. December numbers haven't been released yet, so it's pointless to speculate that into the total.

Again, VGchartz numbers are made up, and use some stupid algorithm equation that is used to "predict" the current sales. Don't use it as a source, it's pointless.

[Rob2600]

it's interesting that with all the talk about "omgz wii domination" that it isn't played as often as the Xbox 360. I have no idea why you quoted those numbers, they just prove the point even more. Now, at the end of 2008, there are even more Wiis out there, and they aren't being played any more than they were before.

My point isn't that people play the Wii the most.

Geneshifter posted that since the Wii is a few percentage points behind the Xbox 360 in the Nielsen survey, that means nobody ever plays it, which is false. I posted data that shows on average, people play the Wii for more than an hour and a half a day.

Also, you wrote that people are playing the Wii 25% less than they play the Xbox 360, which seems like a pretty big difference...but I pointed out that it really only equals a difference of 30 minutes (an hour and a half a day vs. two hours a day).

[scooterb23]

"There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics." - Benjamin Disraeli

[The 1 2 P]

I'm still skeptical about some of these numbers, although I do know some people who still play Halo 2 on a daily basis because they prefer it to Halo 3, so those are some Xboxes still getting lots of use. In addition, I agree with the comments that the types of games available for the various systems have an impact on these numbers. The fact that tons of JRPGs are still coming out for the PS2 combined with the installed base probably explain the PS2 numbers. Similarly, there are lots of long Xbox and 360 RPGs and far fewer on the Wii.

I agree with the skepticism but their(NPD) whole process for conducting this survey is explained at the bottom of the link. Furthermore, I am one of those people that still uses his Xbox to play games more than any of my other 13 systems in my house. So that really didn't surprise me. That it beat the PS3? Again, not a surprise because the PS3 has been out for 2 years while the Xbox has been out for 4+(supported) years. The Xbox still has a better selection of games than the PS3. That should change in the next few years but it still remains to be seen.

[Leo_A]

It must have been, as portables and PC aren't included. I'd really like to see the breakdown...

They only monitor tv usage, the data you want isn't relevant to them, or easily tracked.

[Bojay1997]

I agree with the skepticism but their(NPD) whole process for conducting this survey is explained at the bottom of the link. Furthermore, I am one of those people that still uses his Xbox to play games more than any of my other 13 systems in my house. So that really didn't surprise me. That it beat the PS3? Again, not a surprise because the PS3 has been out for 2 years while the Xbox has been out for 4+(supported) years. The Xbox still has a better selection of games than the PS3. That should change in the next few years but it still remains to be seen.

Yes, except using a sample of 1,200 "gamers" is probably not very representative and not even close to the sample size they use for TV viewership which is in the tens of thousands. Although I would love to believe that millions of people are still using their Xboxes daily, I still kind of doubt it, especially since nothing of any note has come out for the Xbox in over three years now. Given the criteria they used to build this pool, I suspect they are skewing older (i.e. adults in larger households who may care less about the newest games or who can't get their spouse to agree to let them upgrade) and younger (i.e. kids in households who can't get their parents to buy them a new system) than the actual mainstream gaming population which is made up of a lot of 18-35 year old men, many of whom are single and may not have a dedicated land line or otherwise don't fall into the potential group of Nielsen households.

[Eric Dude]

Irony overload.

Ok, so the best you've got is to say "No, you're not well-adjusted!". I can live with that.

Cut me some slack. It was a knee-jerk response to the guy saying nobody's playing anything on their Wiis.

Anyway, yeah this thread is kinda pointless, because the sample size is ridiculously small, and the info they're tracking is so irrelevant that the whole thing was almost a waste of time.

[swlovinist]

On a very side note: Does getting your 360 to boot up properly or rebooting time getting it to play a game count as game time?

[erik]

I just read over this list and found it to be a very interesting read, though it hardly surprises me that the PS2 is still the most-played system. I still play mine far more than my 360 or Wii. I do not own a PS3, because I already own a blu-ray player anyway. One major issue that I must address is the fact that games of this generation just are not that original or fun anymore. I know I will take some shit from some 'modern gamers' on this site, but all evidence points to the 360/PS3 generation being a big letdown for the hardcore gamer(I don't care what the sales numbers say.)

Why does it have to be this way? How did it end up this way?? I don't really know for sure, but I think game development costs are so high that only the biggest companies can afford to make games anymore. Companies such as EA are giving us derivative games that only appeal to casual gamers(how much Need for Speed do we really need??) Don't get me wrong - there still are some fun and original titles such as Bioshock, Gears, GTAIV, Mario Galaxy and the excellent and highly original Braid on XBLA. Other than a dozen games or so, there is nothing else that I would find myself playing 5 or 10 years from now. In my opinion, that is the most profound change in the industry.

[Sudo]

I just read over this list and found it to be a very interesting read, though it hardly surprises me that the PS2 is still the most-played system. I still play mine far more than my 360 or Wii. I do not own a PS3, because I already own a blu-ray player anyway. One major issue that I must address is the fact that games of this generation just are not that original or fun anymore. I know I will take some shit from some 'modern gamers' on this site, but all evidence points to the 360/PS3 generation being a big letdown for the hardcore gamer(I don't care what the sales numbers say.)

Why does it have to be this way? How did it end up this way?? I don't really know for sure, but I think game development costs are so high that only the biggest companies can afford to make games anymore. Companies such as EA are giving us derivative games that only appeal to casual gamers(how much Need for Speed do we really need??) Don't get me wrong - there still are some fun and original titles such as Bioshock, Gears, GTAIV, Mario Galaxy and the excellent and highly original Braid on XBLA. Other than a dozen games or so, there is nothing else that I would find myself playing 5 or 10 years from now. In my opinion, that is the most profound change in the industry.

This is just your opinion, it's far from being fact.

[unwinddesign]

I could probably only name 15 or 20 AAA, legendary titles from each generation, so that fact doesn't change...neither does the fact that like 50% of games are complete and utter crap. People may remember the days of the SNES and so forth fondly, but there were so many sacks of shit on there it was nigh unbelievable. You just didn't hear about them, because there wasn't internet in every home and they didn't get advertised that much.

Now, games only rarely slip quietly out the door, and almost every game gets reviewed, so everyone knows about all the complete and total turds out there, like that Ninja Bread Man game for Wii.

[jcalder8]

Might Nielsen have classified some 360's as Xbox's which could account for their higher numbers.

[Nature Boy]

I'm not surprised by any of it. They're measuring *useage,* which certain counts but is definitely not limited to playing games, especially for the Xbox and PS users.

I love using my consoles as more than just games machines. I watch mpegs and listen to music all the time on my 360 and Xbox. I watch DVDs on my PS2.

The machines that can be used more than one way *should* be at the top of that list!

[The 1 2 P]

The machines that can be used more than one way *should* be at the top of that list!

Good point.

[Poofta!]

It must have been, as portables and PC aren't included. I'd really like to see the breakdown...

incorrect, the ds and psp (and pc) do not connect to a nielson box. so it would be dreamcast and below.

[j_factor]

incorrect, the ds and psp (and pc) do not connect to a nielson box. so it would be dreamcast and below.

How can you say "incorrect" followed by something that completely agrees with what I said?