Link: http://www.gamedaily.com/articles/news/wii-usage-consistent-yearround-says-nielsen/?biz=1

No one can deny that the Wii has been incredibly successful for Nintendo, but every once in a while a comment appears from an executive or analyst to the effect that the Wii is more like a toy that stays in the closet more often than not. One such comment came from Sega A&R's head of content, Darren Williams, who said recently, "I think on one hand the Wii has become the most expensive board game on Earth - it's the kind of thing that families will play at Christmas, and probably won't play again throughout the remainder of the year.

GameDaily BIZ has obtained new data from Nielsen Games, however, that actually shows Wii gameplay habits to be quite consistent throughout the year. From September 2007 through August 2008, Nielsen gathered data (please see chart below) that shows the Wii being used between five and six days per month for around 50 minutes at a time.





Nielsen Games' Marketing Manager Brad Raczka told us, "All next generation consoles (Xbox 360, PS3 and Wii) continue to grow in terms of their overall consumption of usage minutes compared to the last generation. (Xbox, PS2 and Gamecube). We look at this data every month and see the trend continuing. (The console usage comes from the same Nielsen households that produce the TV ratings)."

He added, "The PS2 still has the highest overall usage for any individual console Nielsen measures due to its very large installed base. It should be interesting to see how these usage dynamics might change with the upcoming holiday season, where variables like recent price cuts and the release of various blockbuster titles for the different consoles could significantly change console activity in 2009."

We asked Nielsen for a comparison of the Wii's average usage days and session minutes to that of the Xbox 360 and PS3. The company was not ready to divulge that extra data at this time, but Rackza noted that there are "definitely differences between the consoles, even more so when you break it down by age, gender and other demos."

mod edit (Sqrl)- fixed the chart image, it wasn't showing up =P

LOL this is interesting, so how many of these so-called articles to pop up to bash the Wii? Its like Pachter, LBP is the secret weapon of the PS3 LOL...

edit: AH SORRY, I thought this is one of these articles again. Seem the Wii is still consistent on its userbase wasnt it?

So, if I understand the chart correctly, this means that the average Wii is being played ~ 8 hours a month (~ 500 minutes).

Hardly a lot. In fact, it is around 15 minutes a day in average.

Kind of interesting but ultimately not very useful without something to compare it to.

Actually seems like the usage is actually increasing over the span of a year.

If you've read thoroughly especially the chart itself on the article the Wii actually increasing in usage. It seem that Wii owners arent playing the Wii just for Wii Sports after all. And yeah, this is a survey so this sint really a considered fact. You will knew the real average usage content of Wii gamers on the Wii channel.

See thats the thing, its really difficult to tell if that is good or bad until you compare it to another console.  It may be that this is a decent number, or a great number, or a terrible number...without something to compare to we simply don't know.

Every console is going to have a certain fraction that are actually collecting dust, that group will bring this number down significantly, and the same is true for the group that plays the console fanatically only they bring it up obviously.  Without some idea of how large these contingents are for other consoles its really hard to tell where the Wii should be on this scale.

Wii Sports is being averaged ~ 35 hours. Wii Play ~ 15 (according to Nintendo channel). This means that those account for 5-6 months of play (using this data).

So actually, this leads more to the thought that Wii Sports + Play is being played as much as all other titles combined.

Please correct me if I am using some numbers wrong here.

^^Where are you seeing 35 and 15 hours for Wii Sports and Wii play?

 Actually thats not how the channel works at all, it tracked the sessions on the hours you most played in a game. Which means if you played Wii Sports 1 hour a day, then Nintendo tracked it if you only played it in 30 minutes its still tracked it but it calculate it depends on what average time you played Wii Sports. So if you've played Wii Sports 1 hour a day then after a month you only play it 30 minutes a day  it still record it 1 hour a day. So it doesnt matter if you've played a game till 5 hours if you only played it 1 hour a day.