NPD recently released statistical data relating to PS2 owners. Specifically, the question was: if you own a PS2, do you own any current generation systems? The breakdown was as follows.

10% of PS2 owners also own a PS3.
18% of PS2 owners also own a 360.
19% of PS2 owners also own a Wii.

There can be overlap here: for example, someone who owns a PS2, PS3, and Wii would be counted in both categories. Still, it certainly discourages the notion that there are legions of PS2 fans waiting to upgrade to a PS3, when the PS3 has thus far been the least popular choice for PS2 owners when upgrading, and by a wide margin.

Not really a surprise. Looking at how each console is selling I am not surprised by thid ratio. What is interesting is around 60% of ps2 owners are still waiting too upgrade.

I own a ps2 and have a ps3

so that means that over 50% on the PS2 owners havnt gone next gen still, interesting

Called it. No one wanted to believe me when i was talking about it earlier. Even with europe it seems fairly obvious that more Wii owners own PS2's then PS3 owners.

Booyah.

Well ok, a lot of people believed me and the numbers i put forth based on lifecycles... just people who still think the PS3 will win the generation disagreed.

Well i own both a PS2 and PS3

Hey and i own a PS2 and a Wii... ancetodal evidence doesn't really work.

Interesting, anyone happen to know the PS2 user base in the US according to NPD? Using NPD numbers is best since this is NPD polling.

For now I will use VGC #'s which have NA at 48.45m PS2 owners and an estimated 43.61m PS2 users in the US. Therefor in the US:

8.29m PS2 owners have a Wii or about 61.30% of Wii owners.
7,85m PS2 owners have a 360 or about 64.12% of 360 owners.
4.36m PS2 owners have a PS3 or about 78.61% of PS3 owners.

The Wii accounts for 40.43% of upgrades*.
The 360 accounts for 38.30% of upgrades*.
The PS3 accounts for 21.28% of upgrades*.

*Where an "upgrade" is a console hardware purchase made by an existing PS2 owner.

Lots of GameCube and XBox owners own a PS2, most such people are likely to have bought a 360 or Wii by now considering these platforms already received sequels to the bulk of their popular XBox/GameCube franchises and relatively low entry pricing, also someone with PS2 backwards compatibility may not see the need of owning a PS2.

The 360 is most popular in the states where its install base is larger than for the rest of the world. For the PS3 just the European install base is already bigger than its US install base despite the delay of introduction.

So this proves (or could prove...?) a few things:

Some PS2 owners are also MarioBoys!

The PS2 was for casuals - confirmed?

Overall though, this makes sense. You can't have Wii-like sales unless you have PS2-like popularity. Also, if this 19% of PS2 owners own a Wii stat can be used for worldwide sales (because I assume this is for the USA only, since it's NPD?), that means of the 31 million Wiis out there, at least 22 million are PS2 owners (using this sites PS2 userbase - 120 million), and at most 25 million are PS2 owners (using Sony's fiscal reports that adds some un-tracked territories), which means we can now say how many soccer moms are out there - roughly 7.5 million.