Do you love your Xbox 360? Do you fire it up every morning when you wake up and then again when you get home from work or school just to melt away the stress of the day? Is the PS3 like an old friend, silently waiting for you to pop in a disc and taking you on a magical journey whenever you call? And is the Wii your perfect escape, allowing you to waggle your cares away? One of the curiosities of gaming is that, regardless of sales, how often and for how long do people actually play the consoles they’ve purchased? Well, Nielsen is going to answer those questions with a recently concluded poll that has tracked the gaming habits of two different groups of gamers.

The first group followed was gamers ages 10-26, and the study found that this group most preferred the Xbox 360, playing it for an average of 74 minutes per session, 2.2 sessions per day, and using it for 27.92 days of the month. In the second group, gamers ages 27 and older, the PS3 was the clear winner, with owners using it 55 minutes per session, 2.2 sessions per day for 19.34 days of the month.

So it would appear that while younger gamers go with the Xbox, as expected, older gamers actually seem to prefer the PS3 over the Wii by a wide margin. It would be interesting to know the exact demographics of the survey, with how many in the "Age 27+" are actually 28 or 29 as opposed to being in their mid-30s or early 40s. At any rate, the whole study is an interesting look at gamer habits, and now you and your fanboy friends can band together and play continuously until your console rules all categories.

[Update:] Nielsen has contacted IGN about this news and stated that the data that was released is wrong. The correct data, in fact, shows that the Xbox 360 is the most played console across all age spectrums. So according to the Nielsen study everybody, young and old alike, just love the Xbox 360.