People may be spending less money on video games, but they're spending more time on the games and hardware they already own.

Console usage jumped 21 percent in June, compared with the same period last year, with the average gamer playing 768 minutes, according to Nielsen data released today.

The data was called out by the Xbox PR team, which noted the Xbox 360 had the most "active users" over the past six months. They logged more minutes than Sony's PlayStation 2 for the first time since Nielsen began tracking the info in April 2007.

Yet the PS2 still holds the biggest share of overall console usage, and both the PS2 and Wii have more female players.

An excerpt from the Nielsen blog:

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.