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Games Entertainment

Nielsen's First PlayMetrics Results Announced 49

Posted by Zonk from the how-we-play dept.
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.
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Nielsen's First PlayMetrics Results Announced More

Nielsen's First PlayMetrics Results Announced

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  • What about.... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by svendsen ( 1029716 ) on Thursday July 26, 2007 @03:43PM (#20001301)
    the DS and PSP? While they aren't consoles, they are still part of the video game market. And considering hwo the DS has creamed a lot of the consoles you would think they would want that info.
    • Thats true, the DS is rather popular, but I think it misses the scope of this study.

      DS or PSP owners almost always also own a console also. And, as far as that goes, consoles are still played more by several orders of magnitude.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by AuMatar ( 183847 )
        I'm not sure about that. Look at the sales numbers for the DS in Japan- they've sold enough that half the population has one. Regaurdless, without numbers, you can't just assume either of those things you just assumed.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by flewp ( 458359 )
          Nor can you assume that just because they've sold enough for half the population of Japan to own a DS, that indeed half the population owns one. While I doubt many people own more than one, I'm betting quite a few have had to buy more than one to replace a broken, lost, or stolen one.

          (apologies if you meant that they've sold enough that half the population *could* own one)

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by LKM ( 227954 )
            Yeah, but those that were stolen presumably remain in use by some member of the population. Also, babies can't play DS, so not every member of the population is a potential DS owner to begin with.

        • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

          by JonathanBoyd ( 644397 )
          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.
      • DS or PSP owners almost always also own a console also. And, as far as that goes, consoles are still played more by several orders of magnitude.

        Actually, with the emergence of the DS as a popular item for first-time owners and players, I'm not so sure that's true anymore -- and it'd be the kind of thing I think would be interested to find out. With the DS market expanding to include more female gamers (from kids to seniors) and non-gamers, and with the Wii being markedly less available in stores than a

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by LKM ( 227954 )
          I agree. As a kid, I owned a Gameboy, but not TV console. I know a lot of people who only own a Gameboy or a DS.

      • DS or PSP owners almost always also own a console also. And, as far as that goes, consoles are still played more by several orders of magnitude.
        I gave my Mom a PSP and she uses it to play music and carry all her photos with her.

        She also has an N64 in the house I guess, but that's for the grandkids.
      • "DS or PSP owners almost always also own a console also. And, as far as that goes, consoles are still played more by several orders of magnitude."

        I think both of these are galactically wrong.

        At least a dozen of my friends own DS Lites and play them constantly. Not a single one of them regularly plays console games, and none of them have any nex-gen consoles (save a few that have a Wii).

        The DS has been outselling all of the consoles for a long, long time now. Lots of people own *just* a portable system and s

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by AvitarX ( 172628 )
        DS or PSP owners almost always also own a console also. And, as far as that goes, consoles are still played more by several orders of magnitude.

        So you are saying that TV based consoles are played approximatly 1000x (3 orders of magnitude) more than portable ones?

        There are a whole lot of portable consoles, probably making up at least 20% of consoles (my flash is not working can't check vgchartz.com). for them to have 3 orders of magnitude less play than the PS2 (approximately 50%) sounds very unlikely.

        My pe
        • The term "several orders of magnitude" is used incorrectly several orders of magnitude more often incorrectly than correctly.

          There... I just helped make my own case.
      • I find that hard to believe given that handhelds usually outsell consoles by 2 or 3 to 1.
    • Unfortunately, it's limited due to their methodology. You have to dig into the press release [prnewswire.com], but you'll see this.

      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.

      So they basically have to be plugged

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by flitty ( 981864 )
        Get some engineer working on moving that tv box into a GBA cartridge size, and then have the user just leave it in their GBA slot for the DS. Simple, problem fixed.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by 7Prime ( 871679 )
          And cut down their DS playing by a third (since so many DSs are still being used to play GBA games). Probably not a very good idea, in terms of establishing accurate numbers.

  • Where is this data coming from? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by razorh ( 853659 ) on Thursday July 26, 2007 @03:49PM (#20001375)
    It's all great fun to see numbers, but how are they coming up with them? Is there some box that people have in their living room that somehow records what system they are playing on and do these people own all systems being monitored? all games? Is this internet based traffic from machines connected to the internet? how many machines out there aren't actually online? Maybe I'm missing something but I'm not seeing any info on how the data was collected in the article.

    • Re:Where is this data coming from? (Score:5, Informative)

      by razorh ( 853659 ) on Thursday July 26, 2007 @03:58PM (#20001497)
      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: (Score:2)

        by Ant P. ( 974313 )
        So in other words, this survey is as worthless as Alexa.
      • Wouldn't that be unable to tell the difference between a PS2 game played on a PS2 and a PS2 game played on a PS3? Seems to me that this method would inflate the numbers for the PS2 and Xbox over the PS3 and Xbox 360.

  • PS3's High Session Times (Score:5, Interesting)

    by BrokenSegue ( 895288 ) on Thursday July 26, 2007 @03:50PM (#20001381) Homepage
    Could the PS3's higher session lengths compared to the other two "next-gen" consoles be explained by a higher proportion of people watching movies on the console (instead of playing actual games)? That would make sense since I know several people who bought the PS3 just to use it as Blu-ray player.
    • I was wondering if some of this could be "Folding at Home" running.

      Some more info on how these stats were gathered would be a lot more helpful.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by twistedsymphony ( 956982 )
      Actually I was thinking more that that 360 had a low session time due to the high session count. Caused by the fact that games get frequent updates and whenever you update a game you have to log-off while the update takes place. It only takes a few seconds but the stats would show a regular 1 session lasting about 1 minute followed by another session lasting 2 hours... If I pop in a game that I haven't played in a month or two there is almost guaranteed to be another game update that needs to occur, and if

      • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

        by iainl ( 136759 )
        Alternatively, they may be just counting it as multiple sessions when I play Geometry Wars for 10 minutes before loading Forza 2, or when I stop playing for a couple of minutes to chat with one of my friends who has popped online before going back to the game. There are all sorts of things that 360 owners regularly do that could be breaking one "session" of sitting down to use it into little bits.

  • Wow (Score:2, Informative)

    by cromar ( 1103585 )
    I didn't realize PS2 was quite THAT popular.
    • Well with over 120 million consoles out there, it's not hard to see. Hopefully this will speak to the longevity of the console and give developers incentive to continue developing good PS2 games, as I'm not willing to fork out the cash for any next-gen console just yet.
    • I own a DS, Gamecube, PS2, Xbox, and Wii, (and many other older consoles) and the console I play the most by far is the PS2. Lately I've been playing the Guitar Heroes, Okami, and God of War 2. There are lots of great games on the system and many that I never played. And they're usually a lot cheaper too than the next-gen consoles (as seen in a previous slashdot article today).

  • So what you're saying is... (Score:5, Funny)

    by feepness ( 543479 ) on Thursday July 26, 2007 @03:53PM (#20001423)

    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.
    They didn't account for load times, did they?

  • Halo 2 (PC) outranks Counter Strike?! (Score:4, Informative)

    by El_Muerte_TDS ( 592157 ) on Thursday July 26, 2007 @03:55PM (#20001449) Homepage
    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.
    • Yea, sounds like some kind of BS, depends on how they do their stats though. They may be calling random sample of people at home, which may mean more people.

      If you go by how many play the game on-line its highly unlikely halo is more popular on the internet.

  • Priorities (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Interl0per ( 1045948 ) on Thursday July 26, 2007 @04:12PM (#20001723)
    Might the fact that the less costly console appears in more affluent homes tell us something about the target market and priorities of those who purchase these machines? Also, why no numbers for PC, only rankings?

  • ok, so what did i miss?? (Score:3, Funny)

    by hurfy ( 735314 ) on Thursday July 26, 2007 @04:45PM (#20002251)
    It says they track on 6 consoles. From the second link adding up the percents comes to less than 79%.

    Are 21% of them playing on the Phantom or something?

    Was interesting that the last gen console beat out its new counterpart in each case tho.
    • Following the stories back to the actual press release to answer myself....

      * Other consists of any other console systems found in the home, such
      as vSmile, Sega, FC Twin video system, Game Wave Family Entertainment
      System, etc.

      Sega and the unknowns combined for more than the 3 next-gen consoles combined. Looks like Sega/NES/SNES combined for about the same as the next Gen consoles (the FC twin is NES/SNES). I think Nintendo got a sneak peak before they announced their non-hardcore strategy. If those numbers

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