“Primarily, we believe mainstream gamers are playing more of the broadly appealing games (i.e Wii Fit, Guitar Hero and Rock Band) pushing their hours of gameplay up,” said Michael Flamberg, director of client consulting, Nielsen Games. “The social aspects of these games have engaged them. We don’t believe hardcore gamers are driving up the usage averages we’ve observed. Second, gamers may be looking to stretch their entertainment dollar further through playing games they own more. The importance of value for them is evident in the findings on used game purchase.”

In terms of why new game sales have been soft, Nielsen offers three contributing factors that explain this:

1. Used game purchasing is at all-time highs in 2009, looking back since 2006. Claims about how many used games are being purchased in absolute terms and as a share of the total (used vs. new) have increased substantially (see graph). This is corroborated by GameStop’s record-breaking first quarter financial results, on the strength of used game sales. Best Buy recently announced it was getting into the used game market as well and Wal-Mart is testing this out.
2. There has been an uptick in claimed subscriptions to video game rental services by mail, to all-time highs since 2006 (14% of gamers in May). This is a plausible substitute for new game purchasing.
3. New game sales have been soft compared to last year in part because of unfavorable title comparisons in terms of how popular the releases have been this spring vs. last spring. This is a hit driven business and there haven’t been as many hits. Awareness of new titles, when prompted with their names, has dipped in 2009 to lows not seen since 2007.

For more, download The Value Gamer: Play and Purchase Behavior in a Recession and read the coverage in the Los Angeles Times.

A gamer is defined as claiming to have purchased a title in the past 6 months and played for at least 1 hour per week on any of the current consoles or the PC.

In addition to gaming consoles such as PlayStation and Xbox, PC gaming is alive and well, while new platforms like mobile phones offer new possibilities for game developers.  More than ever before, video games encompass a broad spectrum of genres, platforms and price.

Other key findings from Nielsen’s report include:

• PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 attract the more engaged users, who are less likely to be watching prime time TV that users of other consoles.

• PlayStation 2 still leads all other consoles in total minutes of usage, but continues to have the highest downward trend.  Data suggests that the PS2 will lose the top usage spot within the next few months.

• Females 25 years and older make up the largest block of PC game players, accounting for 46.2 percent of all players and 54.6 percent of all game play minutes in December 2008.

• The most played games on the PC are card games from Microsoft, with Solitaire being the most played game in December 2008 with over 17 million players.

“Gaming, once the domain of kids and a small group of core fans, is now more mainstream than ever.  As the number of platforms continues to expand, we would expect that more people will be drawn to the entertainment video games can offer.  Along with this, the evolution of gaming consoles into multimedia devices has changed consumption habits of traditional media such as TV, movie and Internet content,” said Bradley Raczka, Marketing Manager for Nielsen Games.

View the complete State of the Video Gamer report here.

Sony’s Playstation 2 was the top game console of 2008, claiming 31.7% of all measured console minutes, according to Nielsen.  The Xbox 360 and Wii ranked second and third, respectively, with 17.2% and 13.4% of all usage minutes between January and October of this year.

Blizzard Entertainment’s “World of Warcraft” was the most popular PC game title of the year, drawing an average of 0.723% of all PC gamers per minute between January and October 2008.

Among mobile gamers, “Tetris” was the top game for Q3 2008, in terms of share of revenue. 

Top 10 PC Game Titles: U.S.

Top 10 Mobile Games By Revenue Share: U.S. – Q3 2008

Top Video Game Consoles By Usage

View the press release.

Read coverage of Nielsen’s findings in Forbes.

Relive the greatest hits of 2008 — stay tuned on Nielsen Wire for more Tops In 2008 coverage.

Look ahead to the new year with Nielsen Wire’s 2009 Industry Outlook series.

PlayStation 2 again topped Nielsen’s ranking of the most-played video game consoles.

Top 10 PC Game Titles: September 2008

Topline Console Usage – September 2008