I think it takes someone with a very vivid imagination to think that less any more than 20% of the downloads on XBLA are paid software. I wouldn't be surprised at all if it was closer to 10%. People say XBLA is great because it offers a BUNCH of stuff. Demos, trailers, etc. Much of this is free. So to think that people would actually download even close to the amount of games that cost money as free content is a little ridiculous.
The actual quality comparison of XBLA Software to Virtual Console is not a favorable one for XBLA. It's not really a FAIR comparison because Nintendo has a gigantic back-catalog of incredible games and XBLA is mostly built off of original titles, but if you want a comparison, IGN reviews both.
http://xbox360.ign.com/index/reviews.html?constraint.bool.game.xbl_arcade=is_true&constraint.not_null.article.overall_rating=is_true&ordering.order=desc&ordering.attribute=article.review_date&constraint.return_all=is_true&constraint.max_rows=40&constraint.locale=us&sort.attribute=article.overall_rating&sort.order=desc
http://wii.ign.com/index/reviews.html?constraint.not_null.article.overall_rating=is_true&ordering.order=desc&ordering.attribute=article.review_date&constraint.bool.game.playable_download=is_true&constraint.return_all=is_true&constraint.max_rows=40&constraint.locale=us&sort.attribute=article.overall_rating&sort.order=desc
Again, I'm not saying that's a fair comparison, but it is still valid to an extent. It will be much more interesting when there are Wii Ware games to compare in quality to XBLA games.
