Report: Half of consoles played in living room

Exactly half of all current generation consoles are kept in the living room, with the Wii the most popular device and the Xbox 360 more likely to be in a child's bedroom - according to new research.

The new Nielsen report is entitled US Gaming: A 360° View and found that that the format most likely to be kept and played in the living room is the Wii at 59 per cent. The PlayStation 3 stood at a 45 per cent likelihood and the Xbox 360 at 42 per cent.

The Wii's dominance in the living room comes despite it having far less multimedia features than its two rivals, just a web browser, photo viewer, and - in the US - Netflix support.

The report was based on data gathered in January 2011, after the launch of Kinect and PlayStation Move, so it is likely that percentages for the PlayStation 3 and particularly the Xbox 360 have risen significantly since.

The second most likely household location for a home console is a child's bedroom, at 19 per cent. Here the Xbox 360 was the most popular at 28 per cent, followed by the PlayStation 3 at 16 per cent and the Wii at 14 per cent.

The only other statistically significant location was the master bedroom, where 10 per cent of consoles are located. The basement houses 7 per cent of consoles, while den/offices and spare/guest bedrooms stand at 4 per cent.

Kitchen/dining rooms and decks/porches/patios host only 1 per cent of consoles each.