Very few (non packaged) games sell to even 40% of console owners lifetime.
Super Mario 64 (~12/32), Nintendogs (~15/45), and Halo 2 (~8.5/24) are the only games in the last 12 years to even come close to the 40% attach rate threshold.
The amazing thing to me is that even with tons of talented studios, and enormous 3rd party support for 10+ years, PS1 and PS2 never had a game sell to more than 11% or 12% of the Playstation user base. I think Sony encouraged developers to make games for individual regions, rather than with true universal appeal, which is why games like Super Mario Brothers 3 (non pack in/~62 million userbase) outsold every game ever on a Sony platform, and even a game like Super Mario 64 (non pack in/~32 million userbase) outsold all PS1/PS2 games - except for three (GTA: SA, GT3, GTA: VC).
To me, the other truth that can be seen from this is, as gaming gets more complicated, software sales decline very rapidly given the increases in the overall market. Paradoxically, this allows more and more games to sell fairly well, despite an increasing (from awful to awesome) range in quality...
If the top selling (exclusive/non packaged) game on Wii, PS3, 360 sells 20 million units, and the three consoles sell 250 million units, what does that say about the quality of games on the NES when Super Mario Brothers 3 sold roughly the same number of copies to only 60 million users?
The ridiculously high attach rates (30%+) of some games suggest that those platforms are essentially defined by one game - to a huge segment of the userbase, while everyone else just needed 'a console'.
People are difficult to govern because they have too much knowledge.
When there are more laws, there are more criminals.
- Lao Tzu
