| COKTOE said: @windbane - Yep, Joystiq published the meta 08' story a few weeks back. It was - surprise! - a 2 horse race between the PS3/360 with the PS3 edging-out the 360. |
True, but as far as I can tell it's also a completely meaningless, cherry-picked statistic.
In 2008, the PS3 had 23 games rated 85+, compared to 22 on the 360. However, the 360 had 17 games rated 86+, compared to 16 on the PS3. The 360 also had 28 games rated 84+, compared to 26 on the PS3. I mention this to show that the cutoff point of 85 is arbitrary, and comparing 2008 libraries, you'll get different results depending on which cutoff point you use.
On top of that, many of those 85+ games for the PS3 are also on the 360 - but they don't count for the 360's list. Battlefield: Bad Company is 85 on PS3, but 83 on 360. Same thing goes for Civilization Revolution, Madden NFL 09, and Call of Duty: World at War. On the flip side, Pure and GH:WT count for the 360 but not the PS3. Correct me if I'm wrong, but to my knowledge none of these games are substantially better on one of the two platforms; the differences in metascores are basically statistical noise. Meanwhile, BioShock counts for the PS3 but not for the 360. Again, I'm not saying this to argue against the PS3's library - I'm doing it to show how arbitrary the exact rankings can be.
The truth is that both consoles had comparable 2008 releases in terms of quality. Saying otherwise is just stating personal preference, and can't be accurately backed up with Metacritic.
I think Kantor said it best though:
