PS2 the Most Played Console In 2008 172
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.
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.
Wow (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Minutes spent correlation to items (Score:1, Insightful)
Sorry but what? 30 to 1 in the USA when rich is defined as $80,000+? I think you're the one living in a reality distortion field. Over a quarter of households earn more than $80,000 a year. Wikipedia [wikipedia.org] is always a good idea before you start posting asinine statistics that have been pulled out of the rear end.
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.
Re:Minutes spent correlation to items (Score:3, Insightful)
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 even a real console gamer (I generally despise consoles for crappy controls).
Re:Minutes spent correlation to items (Score:3, Insightful)
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 article mentions, still quite around. Having visited a lot of EB/Gamestops over the holiday, they're average $10-$20 for the "older, not bad" games. This is probably also factoring in the fact that some people have a backwards compatible PS3, and it's possible that sometime in the future, all PS3s can become backwards compatible with the right firmware update.
Original XBox, on the other hand, is more or less an abandoned console. There's some backwards compatibility, but Microsoft seems to be going the downloadable-content route for popular older games. I was picking some really good Xbox games for less than $5 (Doom 3, most any Project Gotham game, any Silent Hill I could find), and in some cases $1 or less (Cold Fear as a prime example, Brute Force). Even though they were released at the same time as their PS2 counterparts, and often for the same price, there just isn't a current demand for the discs.