• by Wayne Friedman , December 28, 2010

For example, according to Nielsen, PlayStation 3 users are now watching DVDs/Blu-Ray discs 27% of the time -- the second-most-popular use for that video console. This is almost equal to the 30% share of time PlayStation 3 users can be found playing offline games. PlayStation 3 users spend 19% playing online games.

Nielsen believes the overall entertainment marketing push of Sony -- and its Blu-Ray products -- helped this video activity for the PlayStation 3 since its 2006 launch.

The numbers for Xbox 360 are lower when it comes to DVD/Blu-Ray viewing -- just 11% of the time for users versus the 34% playing offline games and 28% playing online games.

Other non-gaming activities come in below video disc viewing. For example, for Xbox, viewing video-on-demand streaming subscription services comes in at 10%, and downloading movies and TV shows at 9%. For PlayStation 3, video on demand is at 9%; downloading movies and TV programs, 4%.

Looking at the percentage of users who do at least one activity on their consoles, Nielsen says 87% of users age 13 and older play video games of some sort on Xbox 360 and Nintendo's Wii. The numbers are somewhat less -- 80% -- for Sony PlayStation 3.

Looking at the percent of users who do each console activity, TV and video are also much less than other activities. For video-on-demand streaming services, it's 26% of users for Xbox 360 and 23% for PlayStation 3 and Wii. For downloading movies and TV, the percent of users is 23% for Xbox 360 and 22% for PlayStation 3.