I agree with his conclusion, but his method of getting there is downright asinine. There's only one clue that'll tell us which console has a bigger install base, and that is software sales.

The ps3 now regularly sustains higher software sales than the 360. The 360 has retaken the lead this past week upon the launch of Splinter Cell, but it'll only beat the ps3 by around 100k units despite Splinter Cell's 530k opening week. Splinter Cell's opening has easily surpassed last week's sales for God of War III, MLB 10: The Show, Heavy Rain, MAG, and White Knight Chronicles (in other words every ps3 exclusive released this year) combined, so you can't simply blame this on "the ps3 having more heavy hitters recently." Looking at the NA/Others sales for last week, the total of all five of those games only accounted for ~173k units, less than a third that of Splinter Cell.

The ps3 simply performs better with multiplatform titles now. Final Fantasy, Dante's Inferno, and Bayonetta all sold better on ps3 from day one, and titles like Darksiders and Assassin's Creed II have shown better legs on ps3. The ps3 version of Darksiders will actually surpass the 360 version in just 3-4 weeks due to its legs. Going back to much older titles, you'll also see games like Call of Duty 4 and Grand Theft Auto IV selling better on ps3 on a weekly basis.

Shooters and WRPGs like Battlefield: Bad Company 2, Just Cause 2, and Dragon Age: Awakening still sell better on 360 (though in Just Cause's case, just barely), and most other genres perform better on ps3, like JRPGs (FF, RoF), fighters (SFIV, Tekken 6), racers (NFS), hack n' slash (Bayonetta, DI), and third person action games in general (ACII, Darksiders, Batman: AA).

Take a look at the top 100 for the week ending April 10th and you'll find these multiplatform titles:

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2
Battlefield: Bad Company 2
Assassin's Creed II
Final Fantasy XIII
Just Cause 2
Call of Duty: World at War
Fist of the North Star
Fifa 2010
Batman: Arkham Asylum
Fallout 3
Resident Evil 5
Tekken 6
MLB 2K6 (lol)
GTA IV
Madden 2010
Dante's Inferno
Bioshock 2
Pure
Lego Batman
Aliens vs Predator
Prototype
PES 2010
Need for Speed: Shift

23 games, only 7 of which sold better on 360 last week. Two of those that sold better on 360 did so because they were bundled (Lego Batman, Pure) and another because it was thoroughly trounced by a ps3 exclusive (MLB 2k10).

In the eyes of third parties, you can tell which console they perceive to have the higher install base.

I really didn't expect someone who should know better to actually believe this. It's pretty clear that the reason PS3 software is beating 360 software is because a lot of people are buying PS3s right now leading to more software sales of old titles.

The PS3 does not "simply perform better with multiplat titles." Legs are completely irrelevant to something performing better, and since you only listed one multiplat that's about to pass the other version, I'm assuming those instances are few and far between. Why would a publisher really care if a game has slightly better legs on the PS3 if its opening is much higher (and revenue and profits much greater in hand) on the 360?

The 360 only sells shooters and WRPGs better argument got old a long time ago. Let's shoehorn the PS3 as well and say that it only sells Japanese and adventure games better, even though it doesn't all the time. Just Cause 2 is in neither category as a sidenote.

I'm not even going to go into detail about how you avoided talking about the 360's attach ratio, which would be ridiculously high if your argument was valid.

riiiight

so how do you explain 360 software sales? 

The 360's overall attach ratio is obviously higher because it has been out a year longer.  Looking at WereKitten's figures you can see that the ps3 has a higher average weekly attach rate in both NA and Europe, and is ever so slightly behind in Japan (given the 360's very small but very hardcore install base in Japan).

The overall attach rate looks at a console's performance over its entire lifespan, but all publishers care about is how titles are selling now and how they will be selling in the future.

Also, you quickly dismiss any discussion of legs as if first week sales are all that matter and you trivialize my examples while providing no counter examples of your own.  Such tactics have easily convinced me you must be right and I must be wrong.  *rolls eyes*

How about this then.  Here's a list of all the titles that have released on both ps3 and 360 in 2010 along with which console has had higher total sales thus far:

Prison Break: The Conspiracy - ps3
Fist of the North Store - ps3
Just Cause 2 - 360
MotoGP 09/10 - ps3
Dragon Age: Awakening - 360
Resonance of Fate - ps3
Final Fantasy XIII - ps3
Resident Evil 5: Gold Edition - ps3
Nobunaga no Yabou: Tendou - ps3
Battlefield: Bad Company 2 - 360
MLB 2k10 - 360
Sonic and Sega All-Stars Racing - ps3
Aliens vs Predator - 360
Bioshock 2 - 360
Dante's Inferno - ps3
MX vs ATV Reflex - 360
Dark Void - 360
Army of Two: The 40th Day - 360
Vancouver 2010 Olympics - ps3
Darksiders - 360 (soon ps3)
Bayonetta - ps3

11 sold better on ps3, 10 on 360 (which will be 12 vs 9 when Darksiders switches)

This only backs up my initial logic, logic that I don't feel had any issues in the first place:  most multiplatform games in the top 100 sold better on ps3 last week, thus ps3 is selling more software than 360.  I don't care how old they are.  Ps3 is moving more third party software.

As for this statement:

I never said they *all* sell better on one platform or the other, and I see no issue simply making the observation that some genres tend to sell better on one console while others tend to sell better on the other.  WRPG fans usually own 360s, JRPG fans usually own ps3s.  There's nothing wrong with that.  That's just how it is.

Meh, I don't need counterexamples, because I know how rare it is for games that get outsold by other versions in the first 10 weeks to surpass the other version.

On the other hand, your argument as a whole makes no sense. Why did X360 outsell the PS3 consistently in software near Christmas? Has the PS3 outsold the X360 so much since then that software sales clearly prove it has a higher userbase? Why has the PS3 been selling more software in Americas? You really want me to believe that the 8 million gap (or however many it is) is nonexistant? You've cherrypicked a time when the PS3 happens to be selling more software to use it to draw conclusions that do not have a simple, clearcut explanation. Excuse me if I'm not the only one that's not following your logic. Software sales are not entirely dependent on userbase. 

I look forward to hearing from you this holiday season when the X360 outsells the PS3 in software again, to which your entire argument will have no explanation for.

Call of Duty?  ODST? 

If you go and look at any random week over the holidays, you'll see Call of Duty, ODST, Lego Batman, and Pure on 360 all in the worldwide top 20.  If you look at other titles, you'll see something similar to what I have shown above: Call of Duty/Borderlands/Dragon Age/Madden selling better on 360, Tekken/Fifa/Need for Speed/Batman selling better on ps3.

And how is it cherry picking?  What else would I use to determine the current ratio of game buyers on each console aside from the last few months of software sales?  Are holiday sales somehow more current than current sales?  Should I use 2008 sales just for the hell of it?

By the way, the gap is barely 5 million now.  Total sales are 39.44 vs 34.09, which is only 1.16:1.