Media research company Nielsen tallies up the points
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Research groups tell us a lot of interesting things, and Nielsen has begun the new year with some unexpected news from 2008. With other reports fussing over the three "next-gen" consoles, who would have thought that Sony's PlayStation 2 would win the popularity contest?
Based on data gathered between January and October 2008, Nielsen has determined that 31.7 percent of the American gamer pool was comprised of PS2 users. The Xbox 360 comes in second with 17.2 percent, followed by the Wii at 13.4 percent.
Furthermore, the research data showed the original Xbox hanging on at 9.7 percent, as the PlayStation 3 sits at 7.3 percent. Nintendo's GameCube falls below that at 4.6 percent, leaving 16.2 percent in the "Other" category, which consists of "any other console found in the home." This doesn't include portable platforms on the DS or PSP.
As for PC gaming, Blizzard's World of Warcraft failed to surprise anyone when it came out on top. American gamers played an average of 631 minutes per week between the months of January and October. This means that each minute, nearly one percent of PC gamers are playing WoW.
Not surprisingly, EA Maxis' The Sims popped up on Nielsen's top ten list of most-played PC titles in 2008. Valve occupies several of the lower ranks:
1. World of Warcraft (Blizzard) - 671 minutes per week
2. Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare (Activision) - 403 minutes per week
3. Halo: Combat Evolved (Microsoft) - 295 minutes per week
4. The Sims (Electronic Arts) - 213 minutes per week
5. The Sims 2 (Electronic Arts) - 291 minutes per week
6. RuneScape (Jagex) - 451 minutes per week
7. Diablo II (Blizzard) - 313 minutes per week
8. Team Fortress 2 (Valve) - 371 minutes per week
9. Counter-Strike (Valve) - 282 minutes per week
10. Counter-Strike: Source (Valve) - 426 minutes per week
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i win Nielsen!
I suppose that by the end of this decade, the sale of PlayStatin 2 will be well over 150 millions. I still play my classic PS2 games regularly on my PS3 and most of the publishers are still supporting PS2 formats whenever they release new next-gen games, for instance, Call of Duty: World At War, Need for Speed: Undercover and Pro Evolution Soccer 2009 and many more.
After all, Sony also realises that they must make money as much as they can from PS2 sales until consumers demand it and I finally hope that PS2 will have an impressive time span of more than 16 years or above. As I said before, according to some sources, PlayStation 2 consoles will be in production line until 2013 or perhaps even longer stay for 2020????? XD............