Nielson Next-Gen Console Usage
Here is a chart directly from Nielson’s site.
It seems that:
- IGN botched the chart and reversed numbers for 360/PS3. My fault for not fact checking them. There are lies, damn lies, and IGN.
- 360 has a wide lead in “usage min %” in both age categories, and leads in the “Daily Avg Num Sessions” and “Average Usage Days” categories for the under 27 age category, while the PS3 has a slight lead in those two metrics for the 27 and up age category.
I believe the “usage min %” represents total install base play time, while the “Daily Avg Num Sessions” and “Average Usage Days” are averages for owners of the consoles. So, according to that, the 360 sells much better across all ages in the U.S., but PS3 adult owners get a little more use out of their systems than 360 adult owners. That’s a much less interesting story than the ones told by the botched numbers.
It’s possible that IGN’s chart is right and the one on Nielson’s site is wrong, but the numbers on Nielson’s site make more sense. The 360 does have a large install base advantage over PS3 in the U.S. (this study is U.S. only), so we should expect 360 to have larger usage numbers.
Moral of the story: People are biased to believe stats that tell them what they want to hear. It’s easy to create a hypothesis around bogus stats. Remember to fact check IGN. 
June 6th, 2008 at 9:20 am
The thing with stats is that they can be made to say whatever a person wants.
Like those ads on TV that say “8 out of 10 women said that Brand X was the best moisturiser.” Then you read the small-print at the bottom of the screen, which states that only something like 150 women were asked – which effectively means that the claims are pointless, since the sample is hardly representative of ‘the masses’.
You could ask 4 people whether they like chocolate or vanilla and come up with a 75% result in chocolate’s favour; it looks impressive on paper, but means nothing.
June 6th, 2008 at 9:24 am
that’s a pretty big mistake to make. but then again IGN have always been sketchy at best…
June 6th, 2008 at 8:28 pm
If you don’t bother wasting you time reading ign, then you wont have to ‘fact check’ them. If their click numbers drop enough they might pull their finger out and raise their professionalism.
Anyway – i’d say Sony would be extremely happy with this, given the lower US install base. The ps3 was marketed as a premium adult-priced product, not a teenagers toy. You would want usage numbers to reflect that.
Teens also tend to have far more ‘game time’ available, so the usage statistics for the ps3 are all the more impressive.