First, the data is only representative of Japan.

Second, the data doesn't really say anything about the consoles social aspect. It only asks household user counts. It doesn't say anything about them playing together. Also, what are the specifications to be a "user"? Did grandma make a mii, therefore she's a user?

To be fair, I have little doubt that the "household user counts" would play together, at least on occasion, and that most 360 owners play on the lonesome (especially in Japan), but the statistics aren't all that interesting.

Also, when I play 360, I usually do so by myself to get some me time in my den. I socialize away from my television on most occasions.

NPD stated that the 360 had the longest play time in 2008. The Wii came in second and the PS3 came dead (Even after the PS2) last for console use. Technically this news from Nintendo is irrelevant.

Just go play halo on live there's a lot of people with username[1]

I'd say you did.

Niether Nintendo nor any other console manufacturer is trying to sell a console to every member of a household. That's what handhelds are for.

You're trying to sell a console to the household itself, and it's an advantage to have more people in that household interested in your console so that a single individual doesn't have to persuade the other household members to get your console. Having more people in a household interested in your console lowers the barrier to that household adopting your console, and also helps to sell more software to cater to those diverse tastes.

I'm sure that some households have multiple consoles of the same type, but they're far in the minority, and expanding your install base to more households would be more desirable than selling more to the same household.

Pakidan, your humour is wasted here.

I'm usually sharper than that. I blame an extremely boring work day.

um ok this is for the most part useless information. Interesting but useless

Put the two data's together.  If i want to play a mutlplayer game on wii and pretty much everyone else we get people together and have 3-4 people all playing on same machine.  If i want to play 360 game seems I have to tell my friends to go home so we can play together online.  

So it may show 360 owners play for 5 hours a day or something, and wii only 4 hours.  but there is one person on each xbox, while 3-4 people on the Wii.  but those 12 hours don't get counted of people that are playing on someone elses wii

You're wrong, actually. Leaving aside its usefulness to us, you overlook the context in which these figures were released. Nintendo is about to launch its own video service in Japan, and to do so it needs companies to provide content. That's much more likely to happen if Nintendo can show those studios that:

1) the 8 million Wiis sold in Japan are currently still in active use, not just stuffed "in the closet" as Sony claimed (without support).

2) Multiple people in the household utilize said Wii.

By showing these two conditions are true, you're essentially telling studios that they have 8 millionx.87x3.4= 23,664,000 pairs of eyeballs as your current potential audience (and that number is increasing by the week).

Quite useful, I'd say. Plus, as you said, it's interesting, and I'm pretty sure we can use this data in the future.