Nielsen Finds PS2, World of Warcraft Most Played In June

Nielsen Media Research has released new data indicating that the PlayStation 2 accounted for 42 percent of North American video game console usage in June, while PC users played Blizzard’s tremendously popular MMO World of Warcraft more than four times as much as any other PC title during the month. Interestingly, the survey found that the second most played console during the month of June was the original Xbox, which edged out the Xbox 360 with 17 percent of total console gameplay time that month compared to just 8 percent for the next-gen platform. The Wii also trailed the GameCube with 4 percent to its predecessor’s 5.8 percent. The PlayStation 3 ranked as the least played console for the month, accounting for just 1.5 percent of console game time in June. Altogether, Nielsen found that 68.1 million players in North America used a game console in June, playing an average of 7.5 days during the month. On the days they played, Xbox 360 users were found to spend the most time in front of their consoles, playing 2.2 times on those days for an average of 61 minutes per session. Both PS2 and PS3 players were noted to have played around 1.9 sessions each on the days they played, playing 62 minutes and 83 minutes respectively. While the Wii has continued to be an extremely popular platform at retail, this popularity did not seem reflected in the Nielsen study, which ranked time spent with the console with just 1.8 sessions spent on days when it was played, with played spending 57 minutes with the console each time. The report also found that Wii peak game time has moved into the evening, with most players playing games on the Wii at 8 PM compared to 5 PM in April. As mentioned, World of Warcraft unsurprisingly proved to be the most potent among PC titles played, with .84 percent of all PC players surveyed having played the game at least once for an average of 1043 minutes per week in June. The popular MMO, which this week surpassed 9 million subscribers worldwide, accounted for nearly 18 percent of the total weekly gaming minutes spent by North American PC gamers during the month. The closest competition came from Microsoft’s Vista optimized Halo 2, which was played by almost .2 percent of all PC players in June for 3.6 of total PC game time, while EA’s The Sims ranked third with 3.3 percent of all PC gaming in June. “This is the first glimpse of metered in-home video game player data, providing game publishers, console manufacturers, advertisers and competing entertainment media with the most accurate, objective, and quantifiable metric available,” commented Jeff Herrmann, vice president of Nielsen Games and Nielsen Wireless. “We believe this will change the discussions surrounding which games get developed for what consoles and how publishers represent their actual audience to advertisers.”