Among the roughly 117 million "Active Gamers" in the U.S. in 2006, more than half (56 percent) play games online, and 64 percent of all online gamers are women, according to Nielsen Entertainment's third annual Active Gamer Benchmark Study, released Thursday. Moreover, though teenagers still constitute the largest percentage (40 percent) of active gamers, more than 15 million of those gamers (almost 8 percent) are now 45 years old or older.

Although women make up nearly two-thirds of all online gamers, men outnumber women in the overall videogame universe by more than two to one. And although older females make up the largest percentage of casual gamers, active gamer teens and young adults comprise a considerable portion of this market, with more than half playing casual games an hour or more a week.

The social elements of videogames are becoming an increasingly important part of the gaming experience, with those in the active gamers category spending more than five hours a week playing games socially. Some 64 percent of active gamers play on PC-based systems, which offer users connected experiences through massively multiplayer online games (MMOG) that other platforms cannot yet match. Personal computers also are the platform of choice for players of casual games, especially among women.

In the console universe, Sony's PlayStation 2 dominates overall ownership at 59 percent, followed by Microsoft's Xbox (33 percent) and Nintendo's GameCube (30 percent). Microsoft's Xbox 360, the newest console entry in the market, has 15 percent ownership among active gamers.

The majority of active gamers also owns at least a console and one other platform, with the level of cross-ownership between consoles and handhelds more than doubling (7 percent to 16 percent) between 2005 and 2006 to date - due in large part to the Nintendo DS and the Sony PSP.

Active gamers average about 14 hours a week on their consoles, but as much as 17 hours a week on handhelds. About one quarter (24 percent) of active gamers also play games on their mobile phones.

Active gamers average about a quarter of their weekly leisure time (13 out of 55.3 hours) playing videogames. After gaming, music is the second most popular activity among the majority of active gamer groups, though at nine hours it is tied for first among females.