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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.
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.
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.
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.
Rankmaniac 2010
I didn't realize PS2 was quite THAT popular.
And 1.852% played the original Warcraft (giving it the same rank as Counter Strike; rank 8)?
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http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT
Doesn't sound right if you ask me.
So all that anecdotal evidence is finally backed up by numbers. Good to hear. Really, this is no surprise at all - the majority (86.5%) of game-playing households aren't even playing a next-gen system. We're also seeing the unsurprising breakdown of players - about 60% play a 360, 30% play a Wii, and the remaining 10% are playing PS3. I'm a bit surprised Wii numbers aren't higher - but then again the console is still effectively sold out, and is suffering from a lack of games still. The 360, by contrast, has been out longer and has more games. The PS3 continues to be the laughing stock of the gaming community as a whole - only the hardcore players are playing it. This data will be more interesting as time passes, and trends can be mapped. Also, I think numbers for the XBox (and, snerk, GC) need to be collected, since they're collecting them for the PS2. That way we can see a complete picture of the current and last generation.
Wii households more likely to be upscale
So much for all of the PS3 fans saying that anyone who doesn't buy a PS3 must be poor.
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?
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.
Forget the consoles. This was the most interesting bit on the article:
On the PC side Blizzard's World of Warcraft was the most played PC game in June, outranking the next most-played game (the original Halo) by four times.
If I had invested in a game that came out in June, I'd be pissed at being beat by two games that came out years ago. What's the point of these fancy graphics and inflated budgets then???
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 are even close i would have to agree.
I agree, did you know that in Chicago, pop say 4 million with some outer Burroughs, they only sample 2300 homes for TV ratings? I understand math has something to do with this, but I really think this is not an accurate reflection of what people are playing or watching.
OK,
It looks to me like "Warcraft" is getting false hits due to the ambiguity of the term. If somebody says they play "Warcraft", they are most likely referring to Warcraft III, or World Of Warcraft (though there could be some old school folks still playing Warcraft II).
It should be obvious to anybody even remotely connected to the gaming world that the original warcraft couldn't possibly be in the top 10. Its inclusion on the list demonstrates a defect in Neilson's polling technique.
I know 3 different people who have been Nielsen.
You, or I, alone means exactly shit.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
So, they say 33,000 users are tracked. US population is about 300,000,000. So, the sample size is about 0.011% ! Even by extremely generous rounding, there's no way it would even get to as high at 0.1%
I'd hardly call that a good sample size. Plus take into account what the demographics of that sample size is. This is why I have absolutely no faith in Nielson. Not for TV, and especially not for video games.