One of the most trolled against aspects of the PS3 here on VGChartz must have been its software attach ratio, which would alledgedly be far inferior to that on the XBox 360. The XBox 360 had a one year headstart in the US and Japan and 1 year and 4 month in PAL regions, attach ratios should thus normally be compared taking equal timeframes as the fundamental question of course is: "Do PS3 owners buy fewer games than XBox 360 owners." Hence the average amount of software titles bought per month of console ownership.

With regard to the United States, the XBox 360 has a much bigger installbase at this point. However Sony was kind enough to point out that multi-platform blockbusters do sell relatively well on the PS3, selling more software units than one would expect based on installbase differences:

http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=23186

More interesting is Europe, according to VGChartz the XBox 360 installbase here in May 2009 was millions ahead of the PS3.

Now if we look at the European software sales of that period (based on GfK data):

Based on those figures combined with VGChartz data, the PS3 seems to show superior attach ratios for multi-platform games in early 2009 in Europe as well.

My conclusion: The fat PS3 wasn't widely used as just a Blu-Ray player as was often claimed by fanboys. First and foremost its a games console, selling impressive amounts of games.

Edit:

My assesment was correct. For the last reported fiscal year the PS3 sold 115.6 million units software units and the XBox 360 sold 103.1 million units. This while at the end of March 2010 Sony sold 4.47 fewer units to retail than the amount of XBox 360s shipped by Microsoft.

Meanwhile VGChartz has also already adjusted the PS3 install base up in Europe/others for the period before 2009.

Discussion:

It's strange to see such big differences in attach ratio in Europe. It may well be that the PS3 hardware was undertracked for this period of time or the XBox 360 overtracked. Or both.

Of course things actually got crazy in the second half of 2009 with the release of the slimline PS3 and a major exclusive eye opening blockbuster like Uncharted 2. So something seems to be not right here, anyone agrees?

360 attach rate's far superior, just take a look at the Japan charts.

Of course for 2010 we see well improved software sales for the PS3 in Europe:



It shows 3 PS3 exclusive and one multi-platform game (Modern Warfare 2) ranked above the first XBox 360 entry.

I think you forget the 360's one year headstart which clouds your perspective.

Three times as much PS3 software was sold in Japan according to VGChartz despite the 360's 1 year headstart.

Recently since the release of Final Fantasy XIII PS3 hardware sales have really fired up in Japan and 360 hardware sales slowed even further into nothingness. You will have to give those new PS3 owners time to buy games, almost nobody buys 10 games when they buy a new console, but gradually built a games library (you can't play 10 games at once).

Hence the amount of software bought per month of console ownership ratio is the most interesting. That's the only thing of relevance with regard to current and future software sales, not how long the average console owner may have owned their console.

Even with the one year headstart the 360's attach rate trumps the PS3's.

I thought you were talking about attach rates? Don't change the subject.

Again you go off-topic, in your own thread, even! I wonder why you're so eager to ignore attach-ratios so soon in your thread about attach-ratios...

@ Chrizum

Are you a preteen?

You made a topic, specialized to avoid any mention of America or Japan that would damage the PS3 promotion you're attempting to achieve.

He just wanted to keep you within the bounds of your own topic, attach rates.

Insults are not welcome on these forums.

MikeB got owned... AGAIN!

These are SW sales from last week:
PS3 1,884,964
XBOX 1,539,634

Nice on both but I would expect 360 to beat PS3.