Nielsen's First PlayMetrics Results Announced

June was the first month that Nielsen's new approach to tracking game play was fully implemented, and the statistics from last month are now out. Some sample numbers: "The company determined that 68.1 million individuals used a videogame console in June, playing an average of 7.5 days during the month. The PlayStation 2 was the most-played console, accounting for 42 per cent of the total console usage ... The Xbox 360 accounted for eight per cent of console playing time. Its users logged in an average of 2.2 sessions per day, with an average session length of 61 minutes. The PS3 accounted for 1.5 per cent of console usage. Its users logged in an average of 1.9 sessions per day with an average session length of 83 minutes-the longest playing session of all consoles studied. The Wii, by comparison, accounted for four per cent of overall console playing time. Its users logged in an average of 1.78 sessions per day with an average session length of 57 minutes." GameDaily has further demographics from the results.

Wow

[cromar]

I didn't realize PS2 was quite THAT popular.

Halo 2 (PC) outranks Counter Strike?!

[El_Muerte_TDS]

And 1.852% played the original Warcraft (giving it the same rank as Counter Strike; rank 8)?

http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT= 104&STORY=/www/story/07-26-2007/0004632940&EDATE= [prnewswire.com]

Doesn't sound right if you ask me.

Re:Where is this data coming from?

[razorh]

ok.. dug this up:

Nielsen GamePlay Metrics uses console data collected from the Nielsen's
People Meter TV sample combined with Nielsen GamePlay Metrics' proprietary
audio signature library that matches the unique audio signature of every
game tracked on the six most widely available video game consoles,
including PlayStation 2, PLAYSTATION 3, Xbox, Xbox 360, Wii and GameCube.
The GamePlay
        Metrics user sample includes more than 12,000 households with
approximately 33,000 individuals.
        Nielsen GamePlay Metrics uses PC data collected from the Nielsen's
Video Game Tracking Survey. Video Game Tracking is a weekly online survey
of 1200 gamers 7 - 54 years of age. Qualifications include ownership of a
console or PC, play video games at least 1 hour per week and have purchased
at least one or more video games in the last 6 months. The Video Game
Tracking online survey has been in the field for more than two years (104+
weeks).
        Additional data, including rankings of console video game titles and
the electronic metering of PC game titles are in testing and will be
available to select Nielsen GamePlay Metrics clients in the near future. On
July 5, 2007 Nielsen announced a collaborative agreement with Sony Computer
Entertainment America to develop a measurement system for computer game
advertising that includes the sharing of video game console data. The
Nielsen-Sony data will also be provided within GamePlay Metrics service in
the near future.

from here:
http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT= 104&STORY=/www/story/07-26-2007/0004632940&EDATE= [prnewswire.com]

Re:What about....

[JonathanBoyd]

Actually, they've sold about 18 million in Japan, which has a population of 127 million, so that's 'only' a seventh of the population. Very impressive, but quite far off the 65 million required for half the population.