Through Nielsen Media Research's TV monitoring technology, the same technology that tracks TV ratings, some rather interesting bits of info have surfaced from their findings.

They can track a lot of different types of data coming from your TV. For example, their press release states that "Wii households are upscale. They are more likely to earn more than $100,000 income per year."

Which makes some people question as to why that's so, since the Wii is famous for being the cheapest of the next-gen consoles. Data like that would be very useful for those in the gaming industry.

Other data they have collected should bring perspective to the gaming industry at large. For example, with the console wars raging on, it's very interesting to find out that the PlayStation 2 remains the most frequently played console out there, and the original Xbox is the second. Here's a more accurate account of the data, representing the percentage of total playing time per console:

• PS2: 42.3%
• Xbox: 17%
• Xbox 360: 8%
• GameCube: 5.8%
• Wii: 4%
• PS3: 1.5%
• Other consoles: 21%

Looking at it from another point of view, Nielsen also found that the Xbox 360 had the most number of sessions a day, averaging at 2.21 sessions. The PS3 had the least, with an average of 1.88 sessions. People tend to play the PS3 longer, however. The average number of minutes people sit down and play the PS3 is 83 minutes. The PS2 and Xbox come in second place for longest hours, averaging at 62 minutes a session.

Other interesting things to note: World of Warcraft is the most popular PC game this June, constituting 18% of all PC gaming, next is Halo: Combat Evolved (3.6%), and in third place is The Sims (3.3%).

Sony Computer Entertainment America just signed a deal with Nielsen Media Research to determine the effectiveness of in-game advertising. Aside from that, SCEA also wants the research company to know the usual habits of PlayStation owners while playing video games.

One representative from Nielsen Karen Gyimesi explained that they will accomplish this by tapping into their 12,000-household U.S. National People Meter, which is also being used when determining TV ratings statistics. Gyimesi shared:

We're already in homes across the country measuring TVs. We know when they're playing a videogame on a console. But now we're going to be able to pinpoint what games they're playing, who in the home is playing that game and how long they're interacting with it.

In exchange for providing Sony with the much-needed numbers, Nielsen will get a share of game network traffic and other data from PlayStation 3 consoles, PlayStation Network, and the upcoming PlayStation Home. Gyimesi also added that when this turns out fine, they will have their sights on both online and mobile gaming next.

Nielsen's interest in video games began last year as it announced GamePlay Metrics. The service will be launched this July and will be used to rank video game statistics.

Nielsen Media Research reported that of all the TV households in the U.S., 41.1% of them (45.7 million homes) have video game consoles. Nielsen saw an 18.5% increase in console-equipped households from a 35.2% (38.6 million) in 2004. Entitled "The State of the Console," the report details on the progress of console adoption, demographics of users, and levels of console penetration on various demographics.

 

What's more surprising is that the number of TV households increased by 1.6% only, so the rise in consoles wasn't because more people bagged an HD set. And even though male gamers 18 years old and above have played consoles, those within the teenage bracket of 12 to 17 years old exhibited an extremely high level of console penetration.

Other facts pointed out by the report are:

• The number of Internet-connected console households has grown to more than 4.4 million, even before accounting for the connectivity of the Nintendo Wii and Sony's Playstation 3.
• Two-thirds of all men in television households between ages 18-34 have access to a video game console in their homes.
• During the fourth quarter of 2006, gamers in the top quintile (the top 20% of users based on average use over the quarter which stands at 5 hours, 45 minutes) accounted for 74.4% of total console usage.
• In the fourth quarter of 2006, 93.8 million people used a video game console at least once for a minute or more. Moreover, in any given minute of the day, about 1.6 million people in the U.S. are using a video game console.

Jeff Hermann, VP of Nielsen Wireless and Interactive Services said, "The video game console has become a major player in the battle for the living room." According to him, the consoles are competing against each other to draw the most playing time out of households across the country, including movies, multimedia and Internet TV.

Apple's jump to portable video not being appreciated much? As Ars Technica reports, owners of video-enabled iPods haven't been using the video capabilities of their iPods much. Based on Nielsen Media Research's findings, only 15.8% of vid-iPod owners actually played even a single video on their iPods. And for those who actually watch video on vid-iPods, it only took up around 11% of their iPod time.

Nielsen's theory is that most who purchased a video iPod simply purchased them for the extra gigs of memory rather than the video playback function. Another probable reason is that portable video isn't taking off as fast as the market hoped it would (Insert implications for Microsoft's Zune here). Nielsen did admit that there had been some "technical difficulty" in collecting this research data, which led to instances of incomplete data in their presentation.

On the other hand, video sales on iTunes are taking off, despite this apparent low portable video usage from vid-iPods. The probable conclusion drawn (we don't know if it was by Nielsen or by Ars Technica - they weren't specific) from this is that watching video on the boob tube pwns watching video on the small screen of an iPod any day of the week. Nothing earth-shaking about that discovery, come to think of it.