Everyone puts down shovelware.  Historically, the trash that especially accumulates with the most popular console of that generation.  For example, PS2 has 1969 games in VG database.  Of which only 140 got ranked as 7.5 or above by 10 or more users.  The rest, 1829, either were so poorly received that either the ranking was below 7.5 or not that many cared about the game to bother to rank it at all.  XBox has 884 and GameCube 594 total games, so PS2's "trash" is much greater than XBox's or GameCube's trash and good games.

(Note: All numbers such as # of games, game rankings and games sold are from VG database.)

I went thru the new leader's trash, that of the Wii.  There are 241 games, of which 121 are rated by 10 or more.  47 at 7.3 or above, 194 that are ranked either below 7.3 (74 of them) or no one cares about (120, an even sadder number when you think about it).

I added sales of the Wii games ranked below 7.3 and got ~12M of 'trash'.  (Excludes Wii Play's 7.18M)

http://vgchartz.com/games/index.php?page=1&name=&console=Wii&keyword=&publisher=&order=Last%20Updated&picture=

For PS3, the 13 top rated games have about 8M in sales.

Resistance: Fall of Man  2.0M
Motorstorm                  1.8
Ninja Gaiden Sigma         .3
Uncharted                       .4
Pro Evolution Soccer       .6
Ratchet & Clank              .5
Elder Scroll Oblivion         .5
Tom C. Ghost Recon       .1
Folklore                          .1
Virtua Fighter                  .5
Tom C. Rainbow 6          .3
Warhawk                        .3
Heavenly Sword              .6

X360 does a bit better, since it has been out longer and has Halo.   But without Halo (less than the Wii Play sales), it takes about the top 10 rated games to match the Wii trash.

I guess the adage of "one man's trash is another man's treasure" holds true here.

Great post and eloquently stated points. I salute you, sir.

The more games you have, the more good, and bad you have. I'm willing to bet that if you were to compile a percentage of games that are rated or reviewed above 7, it'd be pretty close across all systems, new and old.

I agree with that completely.  And the Wii seems to be getting a lot more games.

In one year, # of games - Wii 249   PS3 160,  X360 269 but in 2 years.

But it doesn't matter that most are 'trash'  (ie low rankings).  As long as your system gets the most games, and they are cheap enough to make a profit consistantly, the trash will add up to be as valuable as the very good games.

Anyone want to look thru the PS2 1,969 games to see how many are ranked below 7.3?

it's quite unfortunate that good game does not mean good sales. That's just the way the market works, unfortunately. However, I suppose lots of shovelware means more customers means more consoles sold means more and better games. So I suppose each shovelware title can be thought of as attracting better games to the system =D

Interesting thread.

Sorry to be a critic, since you obviously went through a lot of work, but results might have been a bit more reliable if you went to gamerankings or metacritic. The rankings on this page are frequently subject to manipulation.

The rankings in this page are pure fanboy crap.

Bingo, if the original poster went to gamesrankings and did the same then he might have been taken seriously. If i get the time i might do it just to show how wrong the original post is.