Nielsen: 2008's most played console was ... PS2

by Randy Nelson on Jan 2nd 2009 4:25PM

The Nielsen Company is best known for tracking television viewership, but its quantifying of what people spend their time doing doesn't end there. It also tracks console usage among its selected households, and, for 2008 (January through October, at least), the PlayStation 2 was played more than any other.

According to Nielsen's findings, PS2 accounted for 31.2% of all console usage minutes measured. Xbox 360 was a distant second with 17.2%, followed by Wii (13.4%), the original Xbox (9.7%), PS3 (7.3%), GameCube (4.6%), and "other" (16.2%). The fact that more hours were spent playing the original Xbox than PS3 is, well, surprising. PS2's dominance isn't; last we checked, there were 87.6 bazillion of them in the world (give or take a few trillion).

Source

Tags: GameCube, nielsen, PS2, PS3, statistics, Wii, Xbox, Xbox-360

Reader Comments (149)

SonnyBone:

"That's no different than only allowing 10 people to vote in an election that will affect a thousand people."

Uh, yeah. It's called the electoral college.

I'm pretty sure they're tracking what's on the screen and not what's plugged in. Backwards compatibility is probably not taken into account. I would think that most people who own a Wii and want to play a Gamecube game, play it on the Wii.

Good to see the PS2 being still used by many people.

You never gave up the fight, champ!

PS2's still king, baby!

I would guess that most ps3 owners bought their systems for the blue ray capability.

Nope, I bought mine to play games and I've been woefully disappointed.

No surprise that the best system ever is still being played the most. That makes perfect sense.

PS2 is pretty awesome :)

Lately my time is split between PS2, Dreamcast and DS.

I'm pretty sure at least half of 'other' is made up of Saturn gamers. Or Mega Drive gamers.

I was replaying some of the awesome Xbox platformers over Christmas - Sonic Heroes, Vexx, Munch's Oddysee - games which haven't been surpassed yet this generation*. So we shouldn't be so surprised at the Xbox ranked so high.

*I haven't really played Galaxy yet.

Oh hey! Someone else who can appreciate Sonic Heroes!

Objectively, Sonic Heroes was the epitome of 3D Sonic. It was all running, all action, it had the same minimal story that the Sonic haters beg for ("Eggman doing bad, we must stop him!")

On paper, it was the ultimate in 3D Sonic, but it simply can't stack up against Sonic Adventure 2

DREAMCAST STILL LIVES!

Considering how they are creating these stats, it's really just "What system has the most RPGs"

Oh look another fanboy. BR picked up heavily when the dark knight hit. Look at GTA4 and MGS4 sales for PS3. The console is good, 360 is better IMO.

Was a reply to Goreful. Comment system to go to hell i swear >

On the original Xbox being played more than the PS3 depending on how the data was gathered it is possible that some people said they played on the original XBOX when they meant to say XBOX 360.

I am not suprised at the PS2 still being top or the XBOX 360 ranking higher than the Wii.

The other could comprise people who primarily play handheld consoles (DS, PSP) as well as the older consoles

This is an interesting survey, but far more interesting is the avalanche of bullshit it caused in this comment thread.

I'm inclined to disregard these stats since they don't take into account handhelds *cough*DS*cough*, which are, at this point, full-fledged consoles with AAA titles of their own, which means not including them in the survey is just a bit ridiculous.

All the same, if we're going by pure hours here, PS2 winning out hardly surprises me. A handful of hardcores going through Disgaea 2 and the Persona games three or four times each probably equals the combined playing time of the entire state of Nebraska.

...I should probably test this theory. *strokes beard*

everyone has posted about all their gaming habits but nobody claims to have the big black brick... figures, all of them are too busy playing the thing to post :P

im a 360 owner personally, and i do admit that the wii is fun, but from all the people that i know in REAL LIFE (not the intertubes), the wii acts like one of those GI joe action figures you get once, play for a while and then it collects dust.

People, they said they based these stats off a "few Neilson households" so it's not very accurate. The only one that's obviously accurate is the PS2 since they've sold over 140 million of them.

with 125 milion unit's sold, of course it's gonna be played alot

I've said it before and I'll say it again, Xbox fanboys are the worst fanboys.

This is further proof of how excellent the nielson ratings system is. Yes, the same people who come up with the very intuitive data that the xbox is played more than the wii and a last generation console more than any other is the same that decided the fate of shows like Firefly and Veronica Mars.

Oh Nielson, please continue your ever loving, ever perfect guidance of what televised fictions will continue to thrive, or die.

Please continue to generate extremely skewed numbers that no one questions because you are Nielson.

Please. We really need you.

The thing is, Nielsen ratings for consoles are about as useful as a GamerScore is to a 360 user. Fun to stroke your ego with, but of no tangible use whatsoever. It works well for TV because it's an indicator for advertisers, the lifeblood of that industry, but a publisher and a manufacturer don't care what you bought their product for, they have your money

@ ANTCEP Nielsen is US, PS2 sold 42.5 milion unit's in US as of August 1, 2008

I don't believe the more people play on the original xbox then they do the PS3 stat.

People who played PS2 can't afford a next gen console. Simple as that, but I'll tell you this much. Once you play 360 or PS3 on sweet HD and then go back to playin PS2. Wow do the graphics look hella jaggy! I wanna sell my PS2.

agreed. It becomes harder to play the games one generation behind. I think a past gaming console is easier to play if there's a full generation gap between it and the current. PS1 games feel sorta classic now, whereas a lot of the PS2 library just feels dated.

People like you are increasing the all too apparant homogeneousness in the gaming industry. Gloss trumps content as the bedazzled sing praises to HD, when deep down they realise the hollowness of this generation, even if they dare not mention it.

"People who played PS2 can't afford a next gen console."

Condoms people.

"Gloss trumps content as the bedazzled sing praises to HD"

Well obviously, my TV is an HDTV. Why would I want standard digital on my HDTV? That's like if in the 80's I had a color TV, but I preferred to play my Atari games in B/W. hehe.

"Gloss trumps content as the bedazzled sing praises to HD"

You're not that smart of a fella, are you, Megaman?

Smarter than Bowser. Letting some plumber kick his ass over and over again.

I've always wondered how they collect the data for stuff like that. With TV it was one thing, but I just don't understand it with videogames, since they dont necessarily need to be hooked up to a network of any kind

Aren't poll statistics completely useless without a poll size listed?

i was one of those people who played their ps3 for the ps2 backwards compatibility this year.

not until sf4 comes out i'll still be playing 3rd strike and MvC2.

oh and i bought a used copy of rez on the ps2 at play n trade. luckily it didnt come packaged with a used trance vibrator

the king lives. i still play my ps2 even though i have a 60gig because i don't have to switch disc, just hit a button for the system i want to play

the fact that the original Xbox is outplaying the PS3 isnt the least bit surprising, considering these are American numbers
roughly 60% of Xbox units were sold in the US alone

PS2 FTW!
Best console ever.

Can't we all just get along? I mean the real winner is your electric co.

As a 360 fan and a Rocky fan, that picture hurts me.

It's so funny how they ignore the Wii and focus all their hate on the PS3. You can't reason with them. I've tried a few times today.

How the F do they even measure these statistics? Where do all these numbers come from?

If handhelds were counted I'm sure the PSP/DS would top this list.

"I would guess that most ps3 owners bought their systems for the blue ray capability."

Sorry johnny, but it does make sense.. But really, the ratings make perfect sense to me. ps2 is on top followed by the 360.. Just for the simple fact that everybody has one... My 360 is sitting on top of my O.G. ps2 as I type!

It just boggles the mind on how low the ratings are for the ps3..

No its not.. 'Lil joke there.. Everyone I know with a ps3 does not play it (since mgsIV and the Dark Knight).. sony better pull some magic or else!!

But really, it will sit at last place.. It's a failure. And the messed up thing, just like betamax, clie, mini-disk and more.. They won't let YOU, the owner of said-product know that until its too late.

and that's coming from a former sony fanboy, who owned most of that stuff sony abandoned.

go gamecube

This reminds me of when the NES refused to die. Now get off my lawn.

Not surprised at this result at all, everyone knows of the financial situation we've been in since last year, people are of course going to keep playing their already owned console, and PS2 is pretty much nearly owned by everyone. Nothing surprising, Same for the PS3 it's pretty expensive more so than 360 and the Wii so it's place in that list isn't a huge shock.

I'm actually pretty glad my PS3 just broke down. Gave me some time to finally play Persona 4. Good god, long live the PS2.

how was this calculated...?

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Nielsen: 2008's most played console was ... PS2

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