The 360's weakness is now its strength

[Bodhesatva]

This is totally just a theory intended to incite discussion, and I absolutely welcome dissenting opinions and debate. Besides, the basic idea has been argued before. 

For a long time -- even after the release of the Wii and PS3 -- many people criticized the the 360 for its relative lack of diversity in its library. Or, at least, the relative lack of SUCCESS of titles outside the traditionally succesful genres on te Xbox: shooters, sports, racing. And to some extent, that is a weakness.

At this point, however, I think one coudl argue that it is also a strength, as it sufficiently distinguishes the 360 from the Wii to make it a viable alternative. Because the 360's game library so heavily tilts towards shooters and more violent games (to avoid flames: I'm not saying it literally has NO games that do not fit this description, just that it has disproportionately more than most succesful platforms), it provides a legitimate alternative to the Wii for the user.

The comparison struck me after looking at this month's NPD results: Uncharted did much poorer than expected, as has Ratchet and Clank. Assasin's Creed and Call of Duty, however, did quite well on both the PS3 and 360. Which, when combined with games like Viva Pinata on the 360, makes the PS3/360's success rate with non-violent games shockingly poor. 

The problem is that these less violent games play a very important role in the PS3's library; Uncharted and Ratchet, for example, were intended to be two of the PS3's headlining titles this Christmas (and they are great games, from all critical standards, just not from commercial ones). By contrast, the 360 has never intended to rely on these games to make up part of its core audience, and thus the fact that the Wii has soaked up nearly everyone who would play such games has affected it much less. Unlike the PS3, the 360 not only has Assassin's Creed and Call of Duty, but also Mass Effect and Halo 3 as legitimate hardware pushers this Christmas; two more games that significantly distinguish the 360 from the Wii. In other words, at this point, the 360's lopsided library may actually be helping it at this point, since the Wii has taken all the non-gritty sports/violent demographics anyway.  

Just a passing thought, really, and would be more than welcome to criticism. For starters, I think it's possible that the PS3 may end up eating away some of the more casual, non-violent market share, in which case the inclusion of games like Uncharted and Ratchet and Little Big Planet will have paid off; but I have assumed, for the purposes of this discussion, that all such demographics have essentially made a mass exodus to the Nintendo console. Perhaps that will prove unfair at a later date; I'm just basing this on recent sales trends.