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Nielsen Report Shows Gaming Trends Of 2008

Posted on: Monday, 5 January 2009, 07:30 CST

World of Warcraft, PlayStation 2, and Alexey Pajitnov’s 23 year-old Tetris, topped a 2008 year-end Nielsen report of popular videogame trends in the U.S.

According to the Nielsen report, gamers in the U.S. play the Sony PS2 for nearly double the time of the Xbox 360.  The PS2 clocked in at 31.7% of the total usage minutes for U.S. gamers, while Microsoft’s Xbox 360 topped Nintendo’s Wii, 17.2% to 13.4%.

An increasingly popular used game market helped the PS2 keep its lead from 2007.  The original black and green Xbox held 9.7% of console usage numbers, beating out the Sony PlayStation 3 which held 7.3% of the usage minutes.

Nielsen began tracking mobile games for the first time in 2008, and found Tetris taking 7% of third quarter mobile revenue shares, followed by Bejeweled at 4%, and Guitar Hero III at 3.6%.

In PC gaming, the original Halo topped The Sims and The Sims 2 for “average minutes played per week.” 

Though Nintendo Wii came behind PS2, and Xbox 360 in usage minutes, the console saw the largest leap in numbers from 5.5% in 2007 to 13.4% in 2008.

The PS3 saw its usage numbers increase from 2.5% in 2007 to 7.3% in 2008, but still remains behind the Xbox 360.

Overall, PC gaming appears to be taking a downturn from 86 hours per week in 2007, to 62 hours per week in 2008.  The numbers could be deceiving considering 2008 was a down year for PC game releases.  With the upcoming releases of Diablo III and Starcraft II, gamers should find themselves back on the PC in 2009.

World of Warcraft topped the 2008 PC charts, but saw its average hours played per week drop from 17 to 11.  The Nielsen numbers predate the Wrath of the Lich King expansion for the game, which could make the 2008 numbers more appealing.

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Source: redOrbit Staff & Wire Reports

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