@Kurakasa: And why shouldn't they? The average gamer is also buying titles like GTA4 and Halo 3. If the general consensus of most gamers opposes the consensus of reviewers, there's something wrong with the reviews, not the other way around. So, who is it then, who decides whether a game is good or not? The gamer. Aside from ones personal preferences, we have to follow the mass if we want some kind of objective indication whether the game is good or not.

I know my example has some (even serious) flaws, such as defining the genres, but it still is a lot better way than just count the averages. I give you an example:
We have 3 consoles, each has 50 games.
Console number 1 has all the games in the same genre. Console number 2 has games split to 3 genres. And console number 3 has games in five genres. Let's say (for ease) that all the games has score of ten.
Now, as we know, very rare people buy 50 games and ever rarer they play games in only one genre. So the console 1 library would score (50x10x1) 500 points.
Console 2, has more variety, so it would score (50x10x3) 1500 points.
And console 3, with the biggest variety, (50x10x5) 2500 points.
The system would still take the review score into account, but as library expands for different tastes, average score goes down, when it doesn't fit the reviewers personal preferences as a "targetted" library would, the system kind of tries to see beyond this.

http://www.mobygames.com/game/daley-thompsons-decathlon

or more famously:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Track_%26_Field_(arcade_game)

@bdbdbd

Well, I disagree. Quality of a product is not measured by the sales. Usually it is the image/price what sells stuff to average consumers. You could make a lot of examples from varied products, I think you can figure them out by yourself so I won't bother with that. :) By your logic, the best games this gen are COD4, GTA IV and Halo 3. I think a lot of people here disagree with that. Imo, a better indication for a good game is to take a look at the reviews and the sales. (all 3 games I mentioned perform well on both aspects!) That is if you want to use sales as some kind of measurement of quality.

And that example is a bad one. :)

surprisingly (to me) I agree with most of your post. not bad.

I think that Mario & Sonic is more similar to Track & Field.

About OT I think that in the end the success of a console is based upon QUANTITY and DIVERSITY of its library and these aspects are influenced by business startegy made by manufacturer prior to console release.

@Kurakasa: No they don't, there's a lot of different factors to take into consideration. In both, sales and quality. Let's take Wii Sports as an example. It has 70 something score, if i recall, and it has higher quality than GTA4, which is one of the highest rated games. Now, something doesn't add up, unless the reviewers aren't reviewing quality.
In sales, hype and pre-launch marketing usually adds up to frontloaded game sales, when legs show good word of mouth.
I don't agree either, that the games you mentioned would be the best games of this gen, or the best selling games, Wii Sports and Wii Play, would be either. But the games are what the average gamer seems to be liking.
My point wasn't put games in order by sales, but to show that in most cases reviewers score doesn't resemble the gamers tastes and when you think of who the reviewes are targeted at, the system doesn't work as it should.
Besides, as we were talking about who has better library, sales only matter if we add up sales per platform in relation to installbase (note that the installbase relates to the appeal of the games library).

I think the biggest point missing here is the experience ...

No doubt, those are some points that have hit the nail head on.

But the 360 sports the XBox Live service, something neither Nintendo or Sony have. With the old game classics and a HD Movie Download service ... well the 360 provides the most complete experience.

PS3 does have better exclusives, and Nintendo does have the Wii Mote, but if the consoles has great multi platform games, then it will be the experience factor that drives them to one or the other. I dont think, exclusives are as important as the previous generation.

IT IS USELESS ALL YOUR BASE ARE BELONG TO US!!!!!

@gnawkz: The problem with Live is, that you have to pay for it, when PSN and WFC are free. Movie downloads (where available) admittedly play its part, but then again, WiiConnect24 is something PSN and Live can't match.

As for the exclusives, they're the biggest reason PS3 haven't catch up with 360 yet (or more like, exclusives going into multiplatform). They still are the biggest reason to purchase a console, which primary purpose is to play games.
Sure the experience, outside gaming, has something to do with the sales, since all the 3 consoles have a lot non-gaming related features.