This is a comparison of the average metacritic scores of the PS3 and the XBOX360's game library through the years.

Criteria: Has a metacritic score regardless if Retail, XBL, PSN, Kinect or Move or whatever. In other words, if it has a metacritic score, then its in.

General Observation:

1. Xbox360 on average has more games with metacritic scores year on year with the exception of 2011 which is basically spliting hairs

2. PS3's yearly game library's metacritic average score is higher than the Xbox360's with the exception of 2005 where in the PS3 has not yet launched.

Conclusion, both are under 70 hence, both game library sucks balls.

Data: data taken from metacritic website and mearly summarized. No score was edited.

Note: Wii not included due to I got lazy.

Binari Solo brought this up...soooo...I'm adding this here

This shows that the PS3 has 501 games with green ratings and accounts for 41.78% of all games rated in metacritic, which is much higher than the XBOX360's 38.59%. This just shows that the PS3 has more green rated games with respect to total rated games as compared to the XBOX360.

This table shows the number of rated games that have a score of 85 or highter. As it can be seen, the XBOX360 has 15 more games that were rated with a score of 85 or highter. However, it should be pointed out that the PS3 only has 501 green rated games as compared to the XBOX360's 622 green rated games, which is 121 more than the PS3s. This tells us that the PS3 has a higher percentage of games that have a score of 85 and higher with respect to total games rated. The average score of the games with scores 85 and higher are 88 for both consoles with the XBOX360 having an advantage of .13%

Time to sell my PS3 and 360.

yet... the 360 has no games

How does PS3 and 360 games library average Metacritic scores compare to the Wii?

I believe that X360 has more top scoring games (85+?) but has a much longer tale of crapware (thanks in part to a larger Kinect library than PS3 has a Move library I suspect). Sony has a bigger proportion of middle ground of scores.

As most games on the 2 systems are multiplats, shared between them it's logical to assume the scores will be roughly equal, albeit for most multiplats MS has usually got the better score because of the fact the PS3 version is lower quality (with a few exceptions).

That's why if you want to know which systems give the more highly reviewed unique gaming experience you need to look at the absolute exclusives (i.e. not the console exclusives). Unfortunately there are so few of those on 360 aside from Kinect games, that the Kinect effect will skew the 360 meta average much lower than PS3 (because like Move games, Kinect games generally have meta scores on the low side. So it really requires the elimination of the Kinect and Move titles to give a reasonable comparison. But then, the number of absolute exclusives on 360 is considerably lower than PS3, which means the 360 sample size can potentially have outlier biasing of its meta score.

So, it's basically a pointless pissing contest.

You could maybe do a Wii/PS3 comparison because they both have a high number of exclusives. Unfortunately Wii, as the dominant console when it counted, and the new toy when all the buzz was happening, got the lion's share of exclusive crapware.

But what we do know about all the consoles is this:

PS3 500 games with a green score on meta critic
360 620 games with a green score
Wii 199 games with a green score

Conclusion: Each console has enough well reviewed games to satisfy the vast majority of gamers, though the Wii is noticeably lagging. Considering plenty of the 65-74 meta games are worth playing for many people. If review scores were a valid measure of game quality all 3 consoles are well served in good games. Among all those well reviewed games there's got to be at least 50 on each console that any given gamer will enjoy playing.

Somewhere out there, Sales2099 is going crazy. Don't worry, brother. You'll be back to spread truth soon enough.

yup.

Exclusives comparisons have been done to death and there will always be some form of biased. This is purely base on the data presented by Metacritic.

As for the bolded, your figures are quite missleading, if you want to go that route, they you have to take into consideration the number of games rated or included by metacritic. The XBOX360 has over 400 more games listed in Metacritic as compared to the PS3

As you can see from the table, the PS3 may only have 501 games that have green ratings, but it accounts for 41.78% of the total rated games, while the XBOX360 has 622 games that have green ratings, but it accounts to 38.59% of the total rated games. A quick look would tell us that the PS3 has more quality games VS total rated games as oppose to the 360.

Without looking into individual scores, we could assume that the PS3's library has more quality games vs crappy games.

Edit:

Also, with respect to average score for green rated games.

PS3 - 82.11 from 501 reviewed games

XBOX360 - 81.73 from 622 reviewed games.

Your claim that the well reviewed games of the XBOX360 has an average of 85 is false as base on Metacritic's data, the PS3 also has the edge there.

Very small difference with review scores between the PS3 and XBox 360 does not show which game console is more popular, what game franchises/genres sell better on the two console systems. Review scores are subjective, based on the opinion of the reviewer and they are ineffective in deciding the popularity and success of the games. Game sales objectively determine the popularity and success of games, the consumers decide the popularity and success of games and console systems. Game sales numbers mean a lot more than review scores. The average game sales for top selling multi-platform and exclusive games over the years show a lot more than average review scores.

I got lazy when it came to the Wii, but I can include it if you like. I'll just add another table in the OP...once I get around to compilng the Wii's Metacritic data.

Edit: yeah...I tried looking into the Wii's average metacritic score, but by initial inspection alone I can safely assume that the Wii's average metacritic score for its game library is lower than the PS3's and the Xbox360's by a good margine. The Wii only has 1 page of green rated games while the PS3 has over 2 pages of green rated games, while the XBox360 has even more with over 3 pages of green rated games.

That alone would make it so that the average metacritic socres of the PS3 and the Xbox360 would be highter than the Wii's.