Did you miss the part of the OP where I stated we should compare reviews to sales before just assuming things like the highest selling games have good reviews?

But once again, that just means a correlation, NOT that the reviews and sales are connected.

All thats needed to sell games (good or not) is marketing. Reviews in some ways can be looked at like marketing, however attach a crap game to a big movie license and it will sell even when the reviews are negative. The matrix and iron man pop into mind. Also on the opposite spectrum games that get awesome reviews but have no marketing don't sell, valkyria chronicles pops into mind. So the common thread is marketing... that's all thats needed to sell games.

Well then, I guess they're not connected.

That and word of mouth for sales well beyond the opening week.

I should add I've been looking at some sales vs Metacritic, just so I want to practice what I preach. I'll have some PS3 game comparisons next post.

Just because a game gets marketing, doesn't mean it'll get good sales. MAG is still under a mil and I seen a Kevin Butler MAG commercial 2 or 3 times a day. All of my friends knew about it, I still wonder why it sold so low. Maybe people were blown away by MW2. IDK. I do know it had a lot of advertising here in America.

IMO just because a game gets a good review from critics. That doesn't make it a good game to everyone.

Just the same for when critics give movies a flop score, but that isn't to say that others can't enjoy it,

Reviews may have a small impact. But honestly in the grand scheme of things, I think it has to be a minimal.

To me, it all depends on the marketing of the product.

Yeah. Pretty much that study implies that if you advertise a game as 5/5 people will tend to think more highly of the game.

These are the top twenty Metacritic PS3 games, followed by the top 20 PS3 games in the Americas (unless Metacric covers more than just the US, in which case let me know). Format for both lists is "Game Title / Metacric Score / Sales"

I should also add this is not meant to be a definitive list, since I'm choosing the top listings, which are often outliers. A better thing would be a random sampling, which I'll work on after this.

Metacritic

1. GTA IV / 98 / 2.90
2. Uncharted 2 / 96 / 1.65
3. Red Dead Redemption / 95 / 0.9 (although the game still is on legs)
4. Little Big Planet / 95 / 1.75
5. CoD Modern Warfare 2 / 94 / 4.31
6. CoD 4 Modern Warfare / 94 / 2.66
7. Bioshock / 94 / 0.42
8. Street Fighter IV / 94 / 0.93
9. MGS IV / 94 / 2.23
10. Elder Scrolls IV / 93 / 0.99
11. Braid / 93 / (don't seem to have a page for it)
12. God of War III / 92 / 1.70
13. Super SSIV / 92 / 0.34
14. Rock Band / 92 / 0.94
15. Rock Band 2 / 91 / 0.94
16. FIFA '10 / 91 / 0.51
17. Assassin's Creed 2 / 91 / 1.80
18. Peggle / 91 / (don't seem to have a page for it)
19. MLB 10: The Show / 91 / 0.46
20. God of War Collection / 91 / 1.05

Sales - Americas

1. CoD Modern Warfare 2 / 94 / 4.31
2. GTA IV / 98 / 2.90
3. CoD 4 Modern Warfare / 94 / 2.66
4. MGS IV / 94 / 2.23
5. CoD World At War / 85 / 2.23
6. Madden 10 / 85 / 1.86
7. Assassin's Creed 2 / 91 / 1.80
8. Little Big Planet / 95 / 1.75
9. God of War III / 92 / 1.70
10. Uncharted 2 / 96 / 1.65
11. Assassin's Creed / 81 / 1.63
12. Madden 09 / 85 / 1.57
13. Motorstorm / 86 / 1.54
14. Resistance / 82 / 1.48
15. Uncharted / 88 / 1.42
16. Guitar Hero III / 83 / 1.39
17. RE 5 / 86 / 1.28
18. Fallout 3 / 90 / 1.13
19. Killzone 2 / 91 / 1.10
20. FF XIII / 83 / 1.08

Now again, these are the outliers, and refering to what was pointed out, all of the top 20 sellers all had marketing behind them. Note some of the top 20 metacritic games didn't sell that well, but also had little marketing.

And once I figure out how to get a proper random sample, I'll compile some. For now I'll see about the Wii.