I tried reading Game Informer once, and kinda gave up after 10 straight pages of ads.

For future reference, Game Rankings has a whole section set aside for finding out review sites/mags avg's compared to the collective gaming press. Just FYI if you wanted to expand further upon this.

So we should hold Wii games to a lower standard?

The Gameranking stats tell me several things

1. The Wii was the only one of the three consoles where GI was tougher than all reviewers.

2. There was a great variation in game scores for Wii games when you looked at the detail -- some games 10% higher, some games 10% lower. Looking at the type of game might provide more information.

3. The number of reviews and articles is telling for editorial bias. The Wii has approximately the same number of reviews as the PS3 and less than than the Xbox 360. The latter would be expected as it has been out longer and more GI readers own 360's than any other system. But while the former makes sense on a time comparison (both released the same weekend), it does not on the basis of software available (Wii has more games) or reader console ownerships (GI's own survey in August 2008 issue showed more readers owned Wiis than PS3s).

What is even more striking is that GI has written 2.5x more stories about PS3 and 4x stories about Xbox 360. That one would probably stand up to statistical testing and does show some editorial bias in favor of the HD consoles.

For those interested -- console ownership numbers from GI's August 2008 survey.

Xbox 360: 33.8% only console, 74.1% owned
PS3: 16.0%, 43.6%
Wii: 18.6%, 57.6%

Mike from Morgantown