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PS2 the Most Played Console In 2008
Posted by
Soulskill
on Mon Jan 05, 2009 06:33 AM
from the helps-that-they-sold-140-million-of-them dept.
from the helps-that-they-sold-140-million-of-them dept.
An anonymous reader writes "In terms of console usage, the aging PS2 still leads the competition, according to data from US research firm Nielsen. Data the company compiled between January and October 2008 shows that the PS2 commanded 31.7 percent of the total number of minutes spent playing consoles. Only 37.9 percent of play time took place on current-gen systems, with the Xbox 360 (17.2 percent) leading the Wii (13.4 percent) and the PS3 (7.3 percent). Users even spent more time playing on the original Xbox (9.7 percent) than the PS3, while Nintendo's GameCube (4.6 percent) wasn't far behind Sony's new console either."
World of Warcraft once again topped the most-played PC game list by a large margin. Tetris was the top mobile game, followed by Bejeweled and Guitar Hero III.
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Submission: PlayStation 2 was most played of 2008 by Anonymous Coward
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And some of us (Score:5, Funny)
Minutes spent correlation to items (Score:5, Insightful)
During 2009 people have spent large amounts of time in apartments, compared to palaces.
We consider that odd, as we thought living in a palace would be more enjoyable for most of people. We aparently were wrong, people would rather live in 150m than in 5000m.
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Re:Minutes spent correlation to items (Score:5, Insightful)
I know the PS3 is expensive but, come on, a palace joke?
I think he is referring to the PS2 vs any next generation console. Compared to all the next generation consoles the PS2 is significantly cheaper in both hardware and games. While the PS3 has dropped 33% and the 360 has a stripped down $200 box and the Wii is still $250, the price is still way higher than the previous generation in TCO.
Parent
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I remember the end of the C-64 era, when you could pick up games on tape in supermarkets for around 3-5 pounds. Even inflation-adjusted, this is a lot less than games for current consoles,
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Sure, it's last weeks breakfast, but man, for somebody who doesn't really play consoles to begin with, I had a good time with Smash Bros, Zelda games, and DDR Mario Mix.
I'll probably get a WII in 4 or 5 years when the next gen comes out... that is, if they're not as scarce then as they are now.
The interesting thing I found about the old gamecube is that I spent just about $50 on the
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I hear you. It seems that the good gamecube games are kept high in price because you can play them on the Wii. So Paper Mario isn't an 8-year-old game for an ancient console-- it's a title for a current gen system featuring the company's flagship character. So it's "expensive"
Used PS2 games are kept a bit high because the console is, as the ar
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I highly recommend doing exactly that. There's a handful of games for the Cube that will give you a lot of mileage, especially with friends. You'll probably want to pick up Super Smash Brothers and Mario Party 5 for starters.
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Right on. Riding just behind current gen for consoles is the best way to do it. Everything is really cheap, and all the games have been played by lots of people, providing a solid quality filter when making selections. Today, with $100 you could get a PS2 and around 15-20 games for it. PS3 costs don't even come close.
My fiance did this; she picked up a used PS2 and now we can grab new games for a couple bucks at a GameStop. She also has an old Xbox, so I picked up KotOR 1 and 2 for $~5 each. And I am not ev
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Well, you're wrong.
People can /afford/ to live in 500m, vs 5000m.
Pretty huge distinction there.
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Well, if you're implying that the reason people played the PS2 more than current gen systems is because they're all poor, I'd say that's probably not the major cause. After all, it's not like playing games on the PS2 is free while playing them on the wii is an arm and a leg. It's cheaper yes, and the games too, but it doesn't SEEM like it's a gap that means most people can't afford it.
Of course, it does strike me that the order PS2, wii, 360, PS3 is increasing in price and decreasing in playtime, but I st
Re:Minutes spent correlation to items (Score:4, Informative)
Parent
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It depends on where you live.
If you have to spend almost $2k/month on rent in a 1-bedroom apartment, that $80k isn't going as far as you would like. If you are married, with children, you better hope your spouse works. Even with the housing bust, in some areas you can be paying over $300k for a house in a nice neighborhood. (And I'm not talking about a McMansion, either.)
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"over $300k"? Really *much* over $300k. You can get some 1 bedroom condos in the $300k range. $500k+ is where houses are in the SF Bay Area, and that's after the prices having gone down.
Wow (Score:5, Insightful)
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"Congratulations to Nielsen on their fully accurate statistical analysis. Particularly obtaining data for predominantly offline consoles"
Remember, 87% of all statistics are pulled out of someone's ass. The use of a "fudge factor" comes into play here.
BTW, let's put it into perspective. The Wii is a lot more demanding, physically, so you're not going to have those 12-hour marathon gaming sessions on your Wii Fit (if you can find a store that has one in stock).
Re:Wow (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:Wow (Score:4, Informative)
Parent
PS3 Can Play Games? (Score:5, Funny)
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I never realised you could play games on it. Learn something new every day.
You should check out what you're missing. The library has matured and is, well, just there. I can't keep up with the new releases I'm interested in playing at the moment. If you're on a decent screen the experience should be amazing.
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I can't keep up with all the games from the 90s I'm interested in playing at the moment.
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Yeah, the PS3 is a waste of money as a game system. Enjoy your long
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How the hell is the parent flamebait? Hurt a poor Sony fanboi's feelings?
LittleBigPlanet is at best a tech demo. Strip out the whiz-bang 3D graphics and realize that the amazing physics engine really isn't amazing, and you've got a sidescroller that compares with Super Mario Bros. and is about as controllable.
Then you've got the level editor. Great. The most amazing levels have been, essentially, mechanical computers, and they're only amazing because of the shear amount of abuse required to make the lev
Not surprised (Score:4, Interesting)
In fact the Singstar game we played was a brand-new copy of the recently-released Singstar ABBA, and everyone loved it.
You can pick up used PS2 games for a pittance. I remember chatting to a store assistant in a games store, saying he was still always seeing parents come in and picking up PS2s with a bunch of games for the holidays. Console and a load of games well under 100 UK pounds, for which you can't really get another console (perhaps a DS or PSP with one game).
They're still releasing new games for the PS2, a pretty clear indication that it's still alive. No-one sane would advocate playing a cut-down and graphically poor PS2 Force Unleashed, but it's clearly still economically viable to release it. Though some would say the same for the Wii version [escapistmagazine.com]. And, I don't want to arouse any fanboy ire, but I have a sneaking suspicion that similarities in graphical capabilities between the Wii and PS2 might help the economics of releasing a PS2 port... Anyway, there are a ton of PS2 games that are well worth playing - a brilliant last-generation game beats a mediocre current-gen one.
Everyone commenting on gaming stories should disclose their console preferences to discourage fanboy-ism. My TV is currently hooked up to a Wii, a PS2 and a Sega Master System.
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Everyone commenting on gaming stories should disclose their console preferences to discourage fanboy-ism. My TV is currently hooked up to a Wii, a PS2 and a Sega Master System.
How exactly does listing what you own discurage fanboy posts?
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The PS2 is graphically less capable than a GameCube. Any developer who is lazy enough to only dress up a PS2 game (considering the Xbox360 and the Wii both use DVDs - alleviating any storage space considerations) is not using the console to anywhere near it's full potential. Sure, it's not high-def (resolution equal
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You're almost certainly right - but I put it to you that developers don't always exploit consoles' full potential. Take some multi-platform franchise, Star Wars: The Force Unleashed, maybe the Wall-E game or something like that, and y
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I only tried Resedent Evil 4 and Wii Sports, but the mix of jaggies and up scaling was painful. I expect the console could do anti-aliasing if they lower the polygon count, but I have yet to see it. I suspect it would work much better on a smaller screen or with a better game, but don't really feel like messing with it.
PS: Metroid Prime looked great on the Game Cube so I might want to try MP3 it with the Wii unless you have a better suggestion.
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The PS2 is graphically less capable than a GameCube.
Which unfortunately isn't saying much. The Game Cube did have a bit more graphics horsepower, but not by a huge margin. And correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm fairly certain the Wii uses more or less the same graphics hardware as the Game Cube.
Now I know that doesn't sound like it, but I actually am more or less a Nintendo fanboy. The only new consoles I've ever purchased are Nintendo. Game Boy, GBC, GBA, DS, Game Cube, and Wii.
Basically what this story more or less reinforces is that most people care more ab
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You're wrong. Although the official specs on the Wii's GPU (which is actally multiple chips on the package that handle I/O and sound in addition to video) are under wraps, it is definitely more powerful. Most indications point to it being based on the same architecture to maintain backwards compatibility, but it has a substantially higher clock rate (~240 mhz vs. 162 mhz on the Game
PS3 Singstar plays PS2 discs now, too. (Score:2)
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I own an NES with 60+ games (though ~15 are $1 total-crap-games), an N64 with ~25 games, and a PS2 with 5 PS2 and 4 PS1 games. Over the past few months I have disproportionally favored the PS2, pouring hours into Final Fantasy X, FF XII, Deus Ex, Burnout: Revenge, and the Mega Man X collection. I picked up the system used with controllers and memory cards for $40 US
Is this by console or by actual game? (Score:2)
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I believe this is by console. I participated in a part of the survey by phone and the questions were directed towards hardware and not software.
Number of games vs consoles vs time spent (Score:3, Interesting)
Translation : people spend the most time on the console they've got the most games for.
Would have been interesting if they tried to correlate the number of games owned per console vs. the time spent on each console, and see what the difference is between generations (i.e. if you have 10 Xbox 1 games and 10 Xbox 360 games you'll probably spend more time on the Xbox 360, but how much longer?)
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Not sure if I buy that. I have something like 50 SNES games and 40 N64 games, but only 15 DS games, but I play my DS more than anything. I think the translation is that people play newer systems more, but that they take a few years to reach the point where enough gamers have them to play.
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You are comparing apples to oranges. The DS has a different form factor and resource requirements.
You can easily take the DS anywhere you want and, (especially important in a multi-person household), you don't need to tie-up the TV to use it.
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In other news (Score:3, Funny)
Scientists were shocked to discovered that when PS3 was released all PS2 consoles around the worlds did not spontaneously explode!
Maybe Sony should build them less sturdy? I mean who ever heard of electronic device that can lasts for 5, hell 10 years!
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Scientists were shocked to discovered that when PS3 was released all PS2 consoles around the worlds did not spontaneously explode!
I think the surprise is that penetration of the new consoles into the market is not greater. Since there's surprise, this probably means that the uptake of new systems is moving more slowly than with previous generations. I think this will be shown as a product of extremely expensive consoles, a dysfunctional economy with increased job insecurity, and the sheer penetration of the PS2, the best-selling console ever. Lots of people are able to justify putting off the upgrades because it's "good enough" and th
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As a PSone owner, I attempted to buy a PS2 on it's US launch on Oct 26 2000, but couldn't get one due to the shortages, I finally was able to find one in stores in March 2001.
As a PS2 owner I did not attempt to get a PS3 on launch day. Not that I didn't want one, but considering the game library and the price, I wasn't in a rush, the PS2 was good enough. I finally got a PS3 last July. Sony needs to get more RPG's on the PS3, then all those PS2 RPG fans will have a reason to get PS3's.
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Early model PS2's the 10001's and 30001's, are prone to DRE's (Disc Read Errors) after a few years, the bane of any PS2 owner. Later model PS2's are the sturdy ones, the 50001's and 70001's.
Not that surprising (Score:3, Interesting)
PS2: 140 million
Wii: 45 million
360: 27 million
PS3: 19 million
As of 2006, it was still the best selling console. I don't know about the last two years but I'm guessing it isn't doing too badly.
PS2 has biggest library of games (Score:2)
Two things
PS2 users are more likely to have a bigger library of games because they're are more of them, they are cheaper and there has been more time to accumulate them.
people with more time than money (esp kids) are relatively more likely to be PS2 users
people with more money than time are relatively more likely to have newer consoles
this doesn't seem like a strange result to me.
PS3 got the shaft (Score:2, Interesting)
I've got a 360 (admittedly only because work wanted me to have it for a demo) and a PS3. I bought the PS3 for BluRay but I find myself playing on it more and more.
I have played on the 360 a good bit, but I find it is loud and I like having controllers on the PS3 that are rechargeable without buying more stuff. I also find that, oddly, the PS3 controller works better for me. I thought the 360 controller was better at first due to the way it seemed to fit my hands better. But it is heavier and the battery pac
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Yup. Maybe it still will, as the graphics start to get better than the 360 and developers have an easier time working with it, but the window for that is closing.
For my purposes it's a really good fit. It's more expensive to start, but it's all-inclusive (no extra $100 for wifi, etc.) and there's no ongoing costs like XBox Live. It plays media well, Blu-ray is nice (for F/X heavy movies), on a nice big screen (and with the keypad) it's actually a
Missing handheld consoles (Score:2)
Nielsen ratings are always a good laugh (Score:2)
Especially when they try to claim, with a straight face, that anything other than WoW has more playtime/players than Counter-strike and CS:S.
What i'd really like to see is a real count of WoW's actual individuals online at a given moment and not how many ACCOUNTS they have active at a given moment.
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I thought IBM discontinued the PS/2 15 years ago.
That joke was old by the time the GameCube came out in the fourth quarter of 2001.