Nielsen: PlayStation 2 Most-Played Console In 2008, WoW Tops PC Gaming In 2008, gamers collectively spent more time with their PlayStation 2 than any other console. That's according to media research company Nielsen, whose "Top Tens" of 2008 calculated video game console usage, as well as the top PC games.
The company's methodology, also famously used in the TV industry, is to use data from households that it monitors for media usage, and then extrapolate across the entire United States.
Nielsen's data, which actually covers the period from January through October, found that PS2 users accounted for 31.7 percent of the total time played from all nationwide gamers. The Xbox 360 was the year's second-most popular console, with 17.2 percent of the time, followed by Wii at 13.4 percent.
Interestingly, Nielsen says that the first-gen Xbox currently sees more usage than the PlayStation 3, with 9.7 percent versus 7.3 percent, respectively. The GameCube still made the surveyors' list with 4.6 percent of total time, and an "Other" category accounts for the remaining 16.2 percent.
"Other", Nielsen says, includes "any other console found in the home" - it appears that the research did not include portable hardware like the Nintendo DS or PSP.
