PS3 vs 360 top sellers

[starcraft]

Bladeneo said:

starcraft said:
As squilliam pointed out, there is a reason MikeB left out raw sales numbers. The PS3 comes off far less swimmingly when they are included.

At the end of the day the attach rates for the consoles are VERY different. The Xbox 360's is much higher. Now people like Tombi claim they are the same by convincing themselves its reasonable to do point-in-life comparisons. That only serves any real purpose when the comparison is with a console from a previous generation.

The only attach rates developers are going to look at when deciding who to develop for are point-in-cycle rates. At this point in time/cycle, the Xbox 360 has a far higher attach rate than the PS3, regardless of headstarts etc.

One could use a point-in-life comparison to imply the PS3 will continue to grow its attach rate at the end of the generation for one year longer than the Xbox 360, but there is a reason why even that argument is flawed. By now, its just plain common sense to realize that the PS3 and Xbox 360 will have tails FAR lower than the PS2's and FAR behind the Wii. Though it started later in the generation, the PS4 will be forced out at a time competitive with the Xbox 3 and Wii 2, meaning any late catchup in attach rates is unlikely, and will in any case be irrelevant to games production.

That's just stupid to be fair. As a developer, you don't look at how the console has been performing over it's life cycle, you look at how its performing now, otherwise EVERYONE would develop for the PS2 surely? If console A sold 10 million consoles and 100 million pieces of software, thus 10 games to every owner, yet next year sold 10 million consoles and 20 million pieces of software, only 1 game to total console owners, how would looking at the total cumulative attach rate help me make my decision?

It would clearly suggest that the console is still selling alot more games than it really is. To suggest developers completely ignore recent sales data is incredibly ignorant.

I suggested nothing of the sort?

At the end of the day, some people, including the OP, try to imply that the two console's attach rates are the same, when they most certainly are not.  I did not once say that developers would look at attach rates to the exclusion of recent sales data (or any other indicators).  I simply said that they would give more credence to what is happening NOW rather than what would be happening now IF we had had aligned launches or what MIGHT happen at the end of the generation.