Warcraft, PS2 top Nielsen US ratings

The Nielsen Company, which first started tracking videogame usage in the US this year, has released data for the period April to November 2007.

Among PC game players, World of Warcraft was the clear favourite, with players averaging 1,023 minutes or just over 17 hours per week. The second most popular PC title, The Sims, averaged just under 5 hours per week.

World of Warcraft was also the most played game when Nielsen released its data for June 2007.

While not tracking usage of specific console games, Nielsen does compile data on the percentage of each game-playing minute spent on each console. It found that the PlayStation 2 is still used most frequently, capturing 42 per cent of all measured game-playing minutes.

The original Xbox accounted for 13.9 per cent of each game-playing minute, followed by the Xbox 360 at 11.8 per cent, the Nintendo GameCube at 7.1 per cent, the Wii at 5.5 per cent, and the PlayStation 3 at 2.5 percent.

A full 17 per cent of each gaming minute was spent on "other console systems found in the home" not listed above, which presumably must include pre-2000 consoles such as the Dreamcast, Nintendo 64, and the original PlayStation.

The complete list of PC games, in order of the percentage of gamers playing the title in an average minute, is as follows:

1. World of Warcraft
2. The Sims
3. RuneScape
4. Halo: Combat Evolved
5. Halo 2
6. Counter-Strike
7. The Sims 2
8. Madden NFL 07
9. Grand Theft Auto
10. Counter-Strike: Source