Nintendo GameCube as popular as the Wii
But Solitaire still top game for the PC masses
A recent study of 17,000 gamers has shown that the Nintendo Wii is as commonly used as its less-popular predecessor, the GameCube.
Although the study consisted of US gamers, it showed that the average session time in a month for the Wii was 58 minutes, where the GameCube, which was released in 2001, still gets 65 minutes of loving.
However, the Wii had a higher amount of days being brought out into the light, with an average of 5 days per month compared to 4.5 for the GameCube.
The study also threw up some other interesting statistics, namely that the PlayStation 2 is still going great guns as the most popular console (getting 71 mins of usage per session) and Solitaire is the most popular PC game, with over 7 million users in the US, positively thrashing the likes of World of Warcraft, which barely crept over 1 million.
Different game
But before you start to think spending all that money buying the white box of joy was a complete waste, Nick Ellis, Editor of NGamer, the unofficial Nintendo magazine, says there's a gulf of difference between the Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo camps.
"The statistics gleaned from this survey are hardly surprising. Nintendo has successfully marketed Wii to a new audience, and the majority of that new audience is only ever going to play a few frames of Wii Sports bowling once in a while, or the similar family-orientated, quick-play titles that dominate the charts.
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"These folk are never going to sit down with Metal Gear Solid 4 or Bioshock for a six-hour gaming session," says Ellis.
"However, anyone wishing to use the survey's statistics to berate the Wii as being only for the so-called casual gamer should take a look at both recent and forthcoming releases; the likes of Madworld, House Of The Dead: Overkill, Little King's Story, The Conduit and Resident Evil: The Darkside Chronicles to name but a few prove that there are plenty of 'gamers' games' for the console."
Gareth has been part of the consumer technology world in a career spanning three decades. He started life as a staff writer on the fledgling TechRadar, and has grew with the site (primarily as phones, tablets and wearables editor) until becoming Global Editor in Chief in 2018. Gareth has written over 4,000 articles for TechRadar, has contributed expert insight to a number of other publications, chaired panels on zeitgeist technologies, presented at the Gadget Show Live as well as representing the brand on TV and radio for multiple channels including Sky, BBC, ITV and Al-Jazeera. Passionate about fitness, he can bore anyone rigid about stress management, sleep tracking, heart rate variance as well as bemoaning something about the latest iPhone, Galaxy or OLED TV.