The 3rd Party Balance Sheet of Terror

[amirnetz]

Thanks for the feedback folks. I like a good discussion, but please spare the hate to fanboy threads.

I see a lot of criticism as to the criteria chosen for evaluation. Specifically - why not count 1st and 2nd party games? Isn't ignoring it misses a critical part of the picture? How can you determine the "winner and loser" without taking those into account?

So let me be crystal clear about what this thread is and what it is not about.

This thread does not attempt to evaluate the overall winner between the 360 and the PS3. It does not try to evaluate the quality of their respective lineups. It does not try to predict the success of the titles in the market.

This thread also does not claim that 1st and 2nd party titles are not critical to the success of the platform. Of course they are critical. It would be silly to suggest otherwise.

What this thread IS trying to do is to evaluate only one aspect of the competition between the 360 and the PS3: 3rd party support.

I am not claiming in this thread that 3 party support over-shadows other elements of the competition like 1st and 2nd party titles, price, HW quality, brand name and other goodies. These are all very important in the competitive landscape. But so is 3rd party support. 

A gaming platform may win with poor 3rd party support. Just look at the Wii - took the market by storm upon introduction on the sole strength of its 1st party titles.  So yes, you can win with those alone.

But 3^rd party support can be a significant influencer on buying decisions and the “abundance of titles” on one of the platforms can create a perception of a “winner” (and vice versa – consistant lack of titles may cause “loser” perception).

So this thread tries to measure only this aspect. The conclusions of this thread will help us assess if one of the platform is differentiating itself from the other platform through this level of support. Will one of the platforms get week after week more titles released on it? Is one of the platform going to get the perception of “this is the console that has all the titles”?

So this is what it is about. I hope this answers some of the issues.