| Bodhesatva said: If we take it too far, Naz, there is nothing absolute in the world at all. When I was about 15, I realized that universal truth that there are no absolutes. When I was about 17, I realized all of the ramifications of this: there is nothing in the world but opinion. Even the sales are opinions: it is my opinion that VGChartz (and NPD and Media Create) are reliable sources of information. Therefore, the numbers they put up are reasonable and valid -- but lots of others would disagree with those opinions, and would argue that VGChartz isn't reliable, and we see even the administrators here question the absolute reliability of a professional service like NPD. There is nothing concrete or definitely, inarguably true. And then, at 20 or so, I realized that this made any argument of any kind impossible and meaningless; that if we break the world down and insist that everything is opinion and nothing is absolutely true, then we can never agree on anything and discussion and analysis breaks down completely. So now, I accept that while nothing is entirely objectively true, there are things that are generally more true than other things. One of those things that I'd argue is generally agreed upon is that the Xbox 360 has the current best lineup of games among the available current generation consoles. It doesn't mean that I personally like all those games. I don't like Halo, but I recognize that it is generally agreed upon that this is a good franchise. You're welcome to take a different philosophical approach, Naz. I fully agree that there are no absolutes in the world; we all draw the line somewhere (for example, I assume we all agree that it is a fact that the Earth is round, even though we've never seen it for ourselves? ) and I suspect I draw the line at a different place than most here. Sorry to get heavy. It's an enormously complicated issue, so for the most part, ignore this post, as it's likely to get us way off topic. |
Sales have a defining source. After that, we extrapolate opinions. Sales numbers may not be exact, but they are something we can meassure.
You could argue that gamerankings is our basis, and yet it clearly is not a concrete determinant of game quality. You say Halo is widely accepted as a good franchise, but I would say that Wii Sports is far more widely accepted as a great game. I'm basing that on sales. Some would base opinions on gamerankings. The problem is in a quality discussion, we don't have a single accepted medium of quality analysis. All we have, are direct opinions.
With sales, we have a mediator for our opinions and analysis. We have a solid and tangible collection of evidence in between all that. Show me the solid evidence we have for quality analysis. Gamerankings sure isn't it. Any statistics class will tell you that 50 reviewers are not enough data sources to have even a slight grasp on popular opinion. Especially not in gaming, where you yourself have criticized reviewers for being so out of touch.
You say it's generally agreed upon that the 360 has the best current lineup, but there dozens (including myslef) that would argue against that right here simply because the 360 lacks platformers and adventure games that they consider quality. If you say the Wii has sold the most worldwide, who is going to argue with you, past those who don't believe any data at all. Those people would be impossible to discuss with anyway.
When you discuss quality you just add way too many variables such as individual tastes, mass market appeal, and coverage of genres. I understand we can take this too far Bod, but there is a gross difference between sales and quality analysis. That difference is the data set we have available for the discussion.
