and the unknown still go unnoticed....

What's so magical about top 20 exclusives? Lets look at games with substantial sales. We hear time and time again that R2 and KZ2 are failures in terms of sales, so clearly 1.6 million is not substantial. So lets look rather at another arbitrary figure and take games that have sold >2 million:

Gosh, a very different picture.

Xbox 360: FPS, Shooter, Shooter, Driving, RPG, FPS, RPG. 4 "shooters", 4 genres. 31.26 million total sales, 72% "shooters"

PS3: Shooter (debated but we'll leave as is), FPS, Driving, Driving, Adventure, Platform. 2 "shooters", 5 genres. 18.56 total sales, 40% "shooters"

Oh, but come on, everyone knows million sellers are noteworthy, you have to include million sellers.

Same number of FPSs, Xbox 360 has one extra shooter. Can't be arsed working out "shooter" % of total sales because it's after midnight and I need to go to bed, looks like something around 50% for 360 and something in the mid 40% range for the PS3, not a substantial difference. OK OK, not fair because the 360 list is much longer and we capture an FPS at the tail end, so we'll count that out. Leaves us on even shooters, with substantial WW sales with PS3 having one more FPS and 360 having one more shooter.

MGS4 is highly debateable, as it is classed as "Action" on this site, and "Action" on Metacritic, and on Gamespot, and IGN. Can you justify your inclusion of MGS4 as a shooter, given you are trying to show objective evidence to support an assertion, rather than opinion? If we want to be objective about the classification of a game for the purposes of this discussion then we must use an independant source. Re-classifying MGS4 as an action game means you are back with Xbox coming out 1 shooter ahead of PS3 among games that have sold well on a WW basis, if you take out Perfect Dark. 2 ahead of you leave it in. 

These are also facts.

Does a 1 or 2 shooter game difference make the 360 a shooterbox? No, Not considering the range of other genres in the list. Is PS3 a Shooterstation? Equally No. But these are opinions. Some might say that 50% sales being dedicated to shooters does make the 360 a shooterbox, given the range of genres within the list and the fact that so many genres make up possibly less than 50% of total sales. I dunno, I think that's being a bit mean myself.

Facts can be manipulated to show whatever you want them to show.

Oh, and one exciting observation: Valkyria Chronicles is not too far off being in PS3's top 20 exlusives list! Yay!

VC is a shooter not a SRPG :p

Its too early in the morning for me to "do the math" on this so I took the easy way out and checked out several stores and see how they classify games. Only those classified as shooters are counted.

Gamestop - Xbox 360 = 127......PS3 = 104.

Best Buy - Xbox 360 = 41.........PS3 = 31.

GoGamer - Xbox 360 = 73........PS3 = 50.

These places are where my kids and I do most of our game shopping.  I checked out Walmarts site but it doesnt have a shooter category.  This is just general information and  doesnt reflect my opinion on the matter at all. It doesnt reflect sales or percentages or user base  etc....  Just how some retailers classify their games.

My opinion is... the Xbox has a larger selection of games in all genres.  Shooters are a bigger seller on the Xbox, maybe because of a larger user base or Xbox owners like shooters *shrugs*.  

Just because a game has a gun in it doesnt make it a fuckin shooter!!!!!!!!!  ie...Ratchet and Clank, MG4, Uncharted, Crackdown, Saints Row etc..... 

Not including multiplats is not giving all the facts. Its just common sense. 

ratchet is definitely a shooter

Cherry Picking at his finest. Who are you kidding koweniecki the 360 is regarded as a shooter box by many people and you aint going to change anyone's minds with your thread.

You need to include all games. What you have is a view on the games by exclusives (not a bad analysis) but without a full analysis (all games available) I don't think it makes sense to apply the results as indicative of demographics - it's indicative of exclusives really.

Also, should MGS be a shooter and Dead Rising and Crackdown action? Don't all three let you shoot? Although they are clearly different they're all essentially violent action titles and hardly represent huge demographic differences.

Personally I don't think the 360 is all about shooters, I do think they will sell more on that console in US vs other consoles/regions as it is very ingrained there vs PS3 with FPS/online fans - but that's like saying the sky is up I guess.

But reality doesn't matter in a way. What's more influential is market perception. If the 360 is perceived as a shooter console most general buyers will assume its true.

And I'd say that in for many people the 360 is still seen as being all about shooters. Unfair? Probably. But the Xbox ended up with that stigma for a reason (Halo) - its up to MS with a constant stream of diverse titles and marketing to change the general opinions kicking around. I agree with you its annoying when people say it - but they're not going to stop until the brand perception changes. That's the same for everything.

As someone suggested, I tried using the VGChartz categorization.

If you take the top 25 sellers on each platform including multiplatform titles, then calculate the percentage of sales of each category versus total sales of top 25 you get:

Edit: updated to latest sales data

i wouldnt say that the number of FPS on a console makes it a FPS console.... i would say what makes a FPS console is how well FPS sell on it.... and Halo 3 + Gears 1 and 2 sales make it quite obveous what kind of a console 360 is :)

are you suggesting it is an "FPS console" ?