TheBigFatJ on 13 September 2007
Now, I believe these arguments do have a tinge of truth to them, but the fact is, they relegate reason to a mere bias, and anti-X360 idea, rather than look at real numbers to specify who are buying the Xbox 360s, and why.
As you've said, there is a bit of truth to the statements. A disproportionate amount of top sellers had been shooters. Because the 360 is an expensive console, it precludes a large amount of casual gamers from picking it up. And yet this isn't true to the extent that many would have you believe.
You've got a lot of good statements here -- many of which I agree with. I don't have time to respond to everything I agree/disagree with, but I agree with your overall message that the 360 is unfairly characterized as a hardcore-only device or an FPS only device. The tie in ratio is high because there have been a lot of good games, as you noted, and also because it sold almost exclusively to people willing to put a lot of money toward gaming (since the majority of them put $400 down). If the PS3 had as many good titles as the 360, the tie in ratio would probably be competitive.
Viva Pinata should have sold more than it has. It didn't have a ton of marketing, but it is a really high quality game which explains its long legs. This is the biggest question mark for me going forward about the 360: why hasn't this game sold much better?
The recent Nelson survey should also shed some light on some of the common arguments -- would a 'hardcore' gamer who owned the 360 likely know that the 360 can do HD graphics? According to the recent Nelson survey, only 30% of 360 owners knew it was an HD console. This alone should be enough to suggest that non-hardcore gamers are buying the 360.
