You have to remember that Sony stated Nintendo online service as limited.

Sorry didn't feel like reading all the post :P

I see what you mean and it is very misleading. Thanks for pointing that out.

87+50+29+20 does not equal 100. but 50+29+20 is very close

It would only equal 100 if every person they asked only owned a single system.  The PS2 probably still has a decent amount as well.

That's a fair interpretation.  But people read into the bolded #'s too much.  The bolded numbers are more of a (poor) marker of overall marketshare.  Some other interpretations:

Most households have a computer in them these days.  In order to play games online, you need the internet, and a gamer.  Because of the way this poll is conducted, the PC representation is very high because of the fact that both required factors are already present in nearly every household that does play games online.  I'm actually somewhat surprised the % for PC isn't higher, as I'm sure most gamers have played at least a flash game over the previous year.

Based on marketshare, the Wii is actually under represented, meaning that fewer wii gamers by % are going online.  Whereas the 360 appears to be over represented.  Which makes sense as the 360 has a good marketshare in N.A. and is geared towards online gamers.  Can't comment much on PS3, might be a little under represented for online presence based on marketshare, but I don't like to speculate on data that is already hideously vague.

i would think that theyd either asked about the most played or treat multiconsoles as two different people. anyway 186% would mean almost everyone has more than one console... it would also mean that out of 20000 people they have at least 29000 consoles.... this is getting confusing

Alright, so I've come to the conlusion that this data should be wholely ignored by everyone and every credible news source, and just taken as a load of BS.  My reasons as follows:

So the poll consisted of 20,000 people, 5,000 of which played games online.  I can accept that, I have no reason to doubt it.  Of those 5,000 , at least 2,500 owned an xbox 360.  This is not representative of the general population. This would mean that (20,000/2,500) = 12.5 % of Americans own an x360.  Or approximately 37.5 million.  In the U.S.. Or wherever their BS sample was taken from.  And thats assuming that there weren't any 360 owners who didn't make it into the sample of 5,000 online gamers.

This is not even within the realm of statistically relevant.  Unless they took their poll directly from people who work for Microsoft, we know this data is likely completely fucked.

This "Press release" should have been ignored.

Edit: oh yea their other console data is fucked as well. PS3 = 5% = 15 Million,

Wii = 7.25% = 21.75 Million. Which is actually very close to the data VG has.  But that would mean that every Wii owner in the U.S. games online.

At this point I wish they had just released what platforms they owned, and which if any they played online for each of the 20,000 people.  It would be interesting to see how the systems overlapped.  i.e. what percent of people own all three current gen systems, etc.

Its fairly interesting over all. I am surprised so many online gamers actually use the Wii for online gaming. My guess is that Smash Bros and Mario Kart pull in a lot of players and up the percentage. What seems really strange to me is they have found such a low percentage of peopel who play online without owning a console. I am curious as to wht the PS2, PSP, and DS numbers were. For those curious I will link the actuall press release. Hopefully it will stop people from making ridiculous claims about how this report can't be right.

http://www.npd.com/press/releases/press_090310a.html

i play 360 ps3 then pc no wii no way