By Casey Lynn
Contributing Writer, [GAS]

Nielson’s 2008 Trend Summary reveals some interesting data in its gaming top ten lists. It seems that despite the fuss over next-gen consoles these past two years, people still spend more time with Playstation 2’s than any other gaming console. Based on usage minutes, the PS2 nearly doubles the time of the runner-up, the XBox 360, followed by the Wii, and then, interestingly enough, the traditional XBox beats out the Playstation 3. Of course, the PS2’s dominance isn’t all that surprising when accounting for the number of gamers who don’t have next gen consoles either due to unavailability or price. Also, these numbers don’t account for handheld consoles like the Nintendo DS.

In other gaming news, World of Warcraft is the most-played PC game, played by nearly 1% of all gamers in the United States, at an average of 671 minutes per week. Call of Duty and Halo are also up there, though I was rather surprised to see that more people play The Sims than The Sims 2. The top mobile game in the US last year was Tetris, followed by Bejeweled.

Some other interesting results from the list: the top market for adults shopping online is Washington D.C.; the top fiction book sale was The Shack, and nonfiction, A New Earth; the top website accessed via mobile phones was Yahoo Mail; the most downloaded song was “Low” by Flo Rida; the top website all around was Google; and the most “timeshifted” television show was Heroes.