14 DAY TRIAL // You know all the time we, the videogame oriented websites, spend talking about the Nintendo Wii, the PlayStation 3 from Sony and the Xbox 360 from Microsoft? Well, it might be a bit too much as media research company Nielsen just posted data showing that the Sony made last gen console PlayStation 2 is the most used in the United States. The data is gathered by Nielsen the same way that data related to television preferences is collected.
Actually, the data only covers the period from January 2008 to October 2008 and shows that people playing videogames in the United States spent 31.7% of their time using a PlayStation 2, a gaming console now considered old and outdated. The closest current generation rival is the Xbox 360 from Microsoft, which accounted for 17.2% of the time spent playing games, a distant second.
The Nintendo Wii is in third spot, with gamers spending 13.4% of their time with it. It seems that even the original Xbox, with 9.7%, is seeing more play time than the PlayStation 3, with 7.3%. It appears that the Nielsen study does not include the PlayStation Portable and the Nintendo DS (obviously, portable gaming devices).
It should not come as a big surprise that World of Warcraft, the MMO created by Blizzard, which reported having more than 11.5 million subscribers, is the most played PC title, with 671 minutes played per week, which means that 0.723% of gamers play it. The second most played videogame on the PC is Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, created by Infinity Ward for Activision, while Halo: Combat Evolved from Microsoft sits in third spot. The Sims and The Sims 2, from Electronic Arts and Maxis, are occupying the fourth and fifth places.
RuneScape, Diablo II, Team Fortress 2, Counter Strike and Counter Strike: Source complete the top ten most played videogames, as compiled by Nielsen.