what he said.

Can't say I've ever sat down and played for anything less that 2 hours.

Is it possible to opt out of having my console watched via audio recognition? All those moans....

Does it count the TV shows we may be watching through VLC?

@agentmoo... haha

@unstoppablejuggernaut... why? PS2 has sold more than 120million units... the 360 is around 12 million right now, with the wii at 10, and the PS3 at 6 or 7... if the PS2 didn't have by far the most usage i would consider it dubious.

but yeah, i would assume that the 360 would have a higher playtime than the PS3... at least until haze/UT/ratcetandclank/folklore/lair/singstar/heavenlyswrod/uncharted/etc. all come out in the same week this fall.

"at least until haze/UT/ratcetandclank/folklore/lair/singstar/heavenlyswrod/uncharted/etc. all come out in the same week this fall."

Optimistic are we :)

@ shinamano :D well all the decent games come out on the PS3 the same time! IMO the only decent one right now is motorstorm (i dislike shooters which is why i dislike resistance :) ) but yeah... what i mentioned is only the exclusive (timed, console, or otherwise) games. there's also rock band, army of two, guitar hero iii, assassins creed (or is that 2008?) as well as probably tons of other third party games for the PS3 that'll come out that time as well.

oh yeah, of course i'm not talking about downloadable content. there's some great stuff online :D i love dual analog stick shooter games :D :D :D which is probably why i love the PSN... or will love it when i get a PS3 this fall...

I am fearing this holiday time...I own all three systems :(

@thisisami

PSN has 21 downloadables (game demos and arcade games) Xbox Live has anywhere from 100-150 downloadable (game demos and arcade games) You should look into a 360 if that's what you're into.

roughly the length of a movie I see...

If I'd spent 600 bucks on a console, I'd be playing it longer too.

4% > 1.5%

gg

Do they count Folding@Home as "play" time?

Nielsen's survey pool size is so small I can't imagine their statistics being anywhere close to accurate with a survey pool of only 1200 people a month, who have to actively fill out an online survey weekly. How many people here would take the time to fill out a lengthy survey each week that requires you to recall a fairly accurate account of your hours played, per system, per game.

The reverse of this is the xbox live numbers Microsoft can produce each week, where they know exactly how many consoles are playing a specific game for a exact amount of time (granted this only records data for consoles with an internet connection). Their method is orders of magnitude more accurate than the Nielson method which has so many possible sources of error that it wouldn't be a stretch for them to put a "within +/-100%" at the end of all those stats.

How can you call these ratings dubious? The largest media companies in the world rely on Nielsen ratings for targeted marketing campaigns, and the networks use these ratings to determine what to charge for advertising. Fanboyism is akin to religion. Blind faith regardless of logic or evidence.

As far as I know this counts total usage, so it's somewhat misleading. The percents roughly represent this:

# of consoles sold * length of avg play session

So, while the wii's average session is only 5 minutes shorter than that of the 360, when you multiply that by the disparity in sales, then you see the 8% versus 4%.

Not that I'm surprised that people play the Wii for shorter sessions. One reason I bought a wii over a 360 is that I don't have as much time for gaming as I used to. I only have time to play about an hour per night and spending $400+ on a toy that will only be used an hour a night seems excessive to me.

Are the editors going to fix the typo in the story or what?

So with 1200 gamers you get a 21.3% of "other gaming systems" which "consists of any other console systems found in the home, such as vSmile, Sega, FC Twin video system, Game Wave Family Entertainment System, etc.". Seeing they make no mention to DS or PSP (as they are handheld, I suposse) this make a lot of people playing Dreamcast and [S]NES (FC Twin).

BTW, they mention vSmile, a console aimed to kids 3-7 years old when the survey was for "gamers of 7-54 years old". As said before, these aren't surveys, these are a kind of bad joke.


Nielsen Media, fooling CEOs since 1996

The typo isn't just in the story. It's in the goddamn *title.*

Try this: "Nielsen data: PS3 played longest per session, is also the least used."

The Xbox 360 sessions are shorter because it freezes. That is why I sold my 360, I'm done with MS.

Yep, just played online with my friends for 3 hours tonight.

That's because the Wii is played mainly by 5 year old. Us adults thought it was fun at first, but a couple weeks later the thing was collecting dust. It only sees the light of day when there's a party. When you want to vid out, you want to play real games. Adult games. Games that are actually good, rather than a novelty. The Wii is the bottom of the barrell.

@pdarkness, McDonalds has sold Billions of hamburgers. They have got to be the best hamburgers in the world.




Peace.

If movie watching and Folding@Home is factored in, then it makes sense.