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Study: Quarter of all online adults own gaming consoles

And Nintendo's Wii is the most popular current gaming system among adult Web surfers, owned by 14.4 percent of people tracked by Nielsen Online.

Lance Whitney Contributing Writer
Lance Whitney is a freelance technology writer and trainer and a former IT professional. He's written for Time, CNET, PCMag, and several other publications. He's the author of two tech books--one on Windows and another on LinkedIn.
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Lance Whitney

People who surf the Web also seem to love playing games. Among online adults, 27 percent own a gaming console, with another 10 percent planning to buy one over the next year, says a report released Tuesday by Nielsen Online.

Nintendo's Wii was the top console in May, owned by 14.3 percent of Web surfers tracked. That compares with a 9.4 percent market share among online adults for Microsoft's Xbox 360 and 5 percent for the Sony Playstation 3. But Sony's older Playstation 2 scored top honors, owned by 17.3 percent of online users.

Web sites for gaming consoles also proved to be hot spots in May. Nintendo's Web site enjoyed the largest audience with 2.2 million visitors, while Sony's site grew the fastest with 16 percent more traffic last month than a year ago.

The blogosphere has also been buzzing with gaming news. Blog stories about the Wii, Xbox 360, and Playstation more than doubled on June 2, the first day of the Electronics Entertainment Expo (E3), versus the prior week. This year's E3 generated 30 percent more blog activity than last year's expo.

Bloggers have also been busy writing about the latest gaming news. Microsoft's upcoming Project Natal created more blog noise than any other recent announcement. Blog activity also was boosted by news of Nintendo's two new Mario games for the Wii and Sony's new motion controller.