A 360/PS3 Comparison Issue we tend to Forget: 360 Piracy

[sales2099]

http://www.kotaku.com.au/2012/01/the-most-pirated-pc-360-and-wii-games-of-2011/

Top 5 Pirated Xbox 360 Games

1. Gears of War 3 (890,000) (September 2011)

2. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 (830,000) (November 2011)

3. Battlefield 3 (760,000) (October 2011)

4. Forza Motorsport 4 (720,000) (October 2011)

5. Kinect Sports: Season Two (690,000) (October 2011)

The above is an old link. It shows numbers of the most pirated games in 2011. Id imagine we should get a 2012 list soon.

http://www.vgchartz.com/yearly/2012/Global/

This link which shows the number of software sold for each console for 2012.

X360	137,316,716	(-11%)	731,253,117
PS3	130,870,084	(-12%)	635,424,313

Now this is about retail only sales and thats perfectly fine. But some people use this as a method of gauging the current size of the 360 and PS3 gaming instal base. Thats where I feel this issue needs to come to light as millions of 360 gamers will never show up on these stats because they get their games through less legal means.

PS3 hasn't been hacked to successfully pirate games while 360 has been for years. So when you see a PS3 game sales, you know thats the number that bought it. For 360, retail numbers tell a similar story, but at the same time do not represent the actual number of gamers playing them. The above link shows an extra 890 000 players playing Gears of War 3, and 720 000 people playing Forza 4 that will never show up on Vgchartz. People downplaying the install base of Gears of War and Forza are certainly unaware of this. People claiming the 360/PS3 gap of COD sales are shrinking? Retail sure, but actual gamers are playing at least 830 000 copies that can't be counted.

I personally am VERY curious to see the 2012 list, because I would like to see how many times people pirated Halo 4 to see how many people are actually playing it, ontop of legal retail sales.