If you are not familiar with The Nielsen Company, they collect and aggregate consumer data primarily from digital media and analyze it. In a recent publication dubbed, "Hottest June on Record for Video Games," it was outlined that over the past six months the Xbox 360 was the most active console in terms of percentage of users. Between January and June 2009, the Xbox 360 netted between 11 and 12% during any given Nielsen-metered minute.

The other notable stat given was that the PlayStation 2 and Xbox 360 are essentially tied at the top of the Minutes Played category. The average gamer logged 768 minutes of play during this past June and the PS2 and 360 combined for just under 50% of the total time played between themselves versus the rest of the field. (The rest of the field being the PlayStation 3, Nintendo Wii, Nintendo Gamecube, and the Original Xbox.)

For some other stats listed in the study, follow the break:

• Video game consoles are not just being played by kids - just under 50% of gameplay came from adults 18+
• Teenagers 12-17 have the largest percent of play, which accounted for 25% of gaming in June
• PlayStation consoles tend to be more gender neutral than other consoles. Xbox 360 continues to skew more male and Wii continue to skew more female.
• More Americans are playing the newer consoles. Nielsen data shows that current generation consoles, such as Xbox 360, PS3 and Wii, made up 50% of total share of minutes in June 2009, while last generation consoles, such as Xbox, PS2 and Gamecube, made up only 31% of total minutes. Use of older gaming consoles (PS One, Atari 2600, Nintendo 64, Sega Genesis, etc.) made up the 19% balance of usage minutes for the month.

Hottest June on Record [Nielsen]