Can we finally lay this to rest please?

[binary solo]

	360				PS3
	Game	Genre	Sales		Game	Genre	Sales
	halo3	FPS	9.61		MGS4	Shooter	3.92
	Gears	Shooter	5.88		RFOM	FPS	3.59
	Gears 2	Shooter	4.86		Motorstorm	Driving	3.48
	Forza 2	Driving	3.98		GT5 Pro	Driving	3.02
	Fable 2	RPG	2.73		Uncharted	Adventure	2.34
	Left4 Dead	FPS	2.16		LBP	Platform	2.21
	Mass Effect	RPG	2.04		Res 2	FPS	1.6
	Saints Row	SandBox	1.94		killzone2	FPS	1.55
	PGR4	Driving	1.68		Ratchet	Platform	1.47
	Dead Rising	Action	1.65		Heavenly sword	Action	1.36
	Crackdown	Action	1.49		Singstar	Other	0.83
	Viva Pinata	Sim	1.45		Socom	FPS	0.82
	PGR3	Driving	1.39		Haze	FPS	0.76
	Perfect dark	FPS	1.29		Naruto UNS	Fighter	0.7
	Halo wars	RTS	1.17		Hot Shots Golf	Sport	0.7
	DOA 4	Fighting	1.01		Time Crisis 4	FPS	0.69
	Ninja Gaiden 2	Action	0.93		MotorStorm PR	Driving	0.65
	Lost Odyssey	RPG	0.79		Ridge racer 7	Driving	0.65
	Ace Combat 6	Sim	0.63		Warhawk	Shooter	0.5
	Too Human	RPG	0.58		Yajuza 3	Adventure	0.47
	TOTAL		47.26		TOTAL		31.31
	FPS	3			FPS	6
	Other Shooter	2			Other Shooter	2
	Driving	3			Driving	4
	RPG	4			Adventure	2
	Sandbox	1			Action	1
	Action	3			Platform	2
	Sim	2			Fighter	1
	RTS	1			Sports	1
	Fughter	1			Other	1
		20				20

 

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:

	360				PS3
	Game	Genre	Sales		Game	Genre	Sales
	halo3	FPS	9.61		MGS4	Shooter	3.92
	Gears	Shooter	5.88		RFOM	FPS	3.59
	Gears 2	Shooter	4.86		Motorstorm	Driving	3.48
	Forza 2	Driving	3.98		GT5 Pro	Driving	3.02
	Fable 2	RPG	2.73		Uncharted	Adventure	2.34
	Left4 Dead	FPS	2.16		LBP	Platform	2.21
	Mass Effect	RPG	2.04

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.

	360				PS3
	Game	Genre	Sales		Game	Genre	Sales
	halo3	FPS	9.61		MGS4	Shooter	3.92
	Gears	Shooter	5.88		RFOM	FPS	3.59
	Gears 2	Shooter	4.86		Motorstorm	Driving	3.48
	Forza 2	Driving	3.98		GT5 Pro	Driving	3.02
	Fable 2	RPG	2.73		Uncharted	Adventure	2.34
	Left4 Dead	FPS	2.16		LBP	Platform	2.21
	Mass Effect	RPG	2.04		Res 2	FPS	1.6
	Saints Row	SandBox	1.94		killzone2	FPS	1.55
	PGR4	Driving	1.68		Ratchet	Platform	1.47
	Dead Rising	Action	1.65		Heavenly sword	Action	1.36
	Crackdown	Action	1.49
	Viva Pinata	Sim	1.45
	PGR3	Driving	1.39
	Perfect dark	FPS	1.29
	Halo wars	RTS	1.17
	DOA 4	Fighting	1.01
	FPS	3			FPS	3
	Other Shooter	2			Other Shooter	1
	Driving	3			Driving	2
	RPG	2			Adventure	1
	Sandbox	1			Action	1
	Action	2			Platform	2
	Sim	1
	RTS	1
	Fighter	1

 

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!