Wii popular in six-figure households

Households with income in the $100,000 neighborhood have been very fond of Nintendo’s new console, rather than their more expensive competitors from Sony or Microsoft.

Nielsen, the ratings company, knows a good thing when it see it. They’ve started a data-tracking service called GamePlay Metrics, to measure usage of consoles and PC games. They also claim to know a little about the demographics of the homes with consoles:

The company is using the data it collects to track a variety of trends. For instance, Nielsen found that Wii households tend to be “upscale,” or more likely to boast an annual income of more than $100,000. Nielsen can also examine seasonal gaming patterns; the company found that the Wii’s peak usage hour in April was 5 p.m., but since summer vacation started for schools, the system now tends to be used most around 8 p.m.

“This is the first glimpse of metered in-home video game player data, providing game publishers, console manufactures, advertisers and competing entertainment media with the most accurate, objective, and quantifiable metric available,” said Nielsen Games and Nielsen Wireless vice president Jeff Herrmann in a statement.

Should be more interesting once they have been doing this for a few months.