Honest question here: does any system, in history, have an attach rate better than the 360? I know it's hard to calculate right now, but it appears to be around 6.1 per console. The PS2, to my knowledge, is stuck around a 5.5 attach rate, which is still quite good -- but given that attach rates do tend to increase over the course of a system's lifespan, the odds are that the 360's attach rate will continue to increase its lead on the PS2.

So, again: has any system ever had a better attach rate? And quirky question: is this absolutely a good thing? Obviously there this high attach rate is mostly good, but is there some kernel of badness there? The spectacular sales of software, combined with the lackluster hardware sales is... odd, very odd. Could this high attach rate have any downside at all?

Rol, is correct in the fact the Japanese charts are off significantly for the PS2.

However, overall, yes, the X360 has the highest attach ratio in history at this point in it's lifetime. MS has pretty much had the title on lockdown since it came out. It debuted at 3.9+ units per console @ launch in the US (Wii was at 2.9 sold games, and PS3 at 0.6 for opening week), and has increased it's ratio far quicker.

Last week, in the US, the attach ratio was 20:1. 35k h/w units, and 700k+ s/w units. It'll most likely take the US/NA lifetime crown (at a ratio of 10:1) at some point in the future.

The bad part with such an insane attach ratio is that if the console isn't selling, the point is pretty much moot. Who cares if your system has a 10:1 tier ratio, if you only have 10m systems out there, and everyone else has a 5:1 ratio, but 25m systems?

All that matters is total software sold, moreso than tier rates. Fortunately, the fact is, despite the h/w doing mediocre, software, aside from the attach ratio is just great, and no one can dispute that already SELLING 13m software units this year in the US is far from a bad thing.

Bodhesatva, just check the worldwide shipments software database. Search for all millionsellers on a particular platform to get an idea of tie ratios. Just don't forget that these are only the million sellers, so a big part of the sales will not be included. Anyway, PS2 is around 500M that way, so that is between 4-5 tie ratio on just million sellers. So definately their ratio must be above 6.

Thanks for the correction, guys. And yes, obviously it should be pointed out that we're talking about "at this point its lifetime," as attach rates tend to increase over time.

As to your final point, Stick, I heard an interesting analogy recently that struck me. He compared the 360's hardware/software sales rates to a baseball player who bats .200, but belts a home run every time he gets a hit.  

Basically, that analogy is true. The X360 has had a ton of great sellers in the US, and for the most part, the saying "good games sell good" is true.

Consider gamerankings top-20 list for the X360:

#1 - Oblivion (1.2m US units sold w/o a GOTY edition)
#2 - Gears of War (2.8m US units sold + 10k/wk still)
#3 - Guitar Hero 2 (1.0m US units sold + 25k/wk)
#4 - Ghost Recon AW1 (1.3m US units sold)
#5 - Castlevainia: SOTN (One of XBLA's highest-bought games)
#6 - Call of Duty 2 (1.3m US units sold)
#7 - Forza Motorsports 2 (450k US units sold + 12k/wk, 1m seller now/soon)
#8 - Rainbow Six Vegas (1m US units sold + 8k/wk)
#9 - Burnout Revenge (340k US units + Bundle Sales + Worldwide are around 750k for a spin-off from actual Burnout games)
#10 - PGR3 (500k US + Bundles + w/w are just under 1m)
#11 - Shivering Isles (45,000 downloads tracked just via MGC, most likely near 10% of all Oblivion owners have SI installed @ $30/ea)
#12 - Geometry Wars (most-downloaded XBLA game)
#13 - Ghost Recon: AW2 (600k US + worldwide cume is near 1m, or more)
#14 - Dead or Alive 4 (400k US/Japan cume + worldwide, good numbers for a fighter)
#15 - Fight Night Round 3 (1m in US alone)
#16 - Dead Rising (750k in US and counting, 1.3m w/w)
#17 - NBA 2k7 (550k in US + WW cume)
#18 - Viva Pinata (about 275k US/Japan)
#19 - Splinter Cell: DA (600k US)
#20 - FEAR (400k US cume).


So from the top 20, only 4 games failed to reach 500k in the US - Fear, DOA, Burnout and Viva. 10 are either million sellers, or very very close worldwide. I say that X360 gamers are rather smart, as very few games on the top 20 have sold 1m copies, and only VP really failed to do very well, and even then, is still charting in Japan, and is recieving a new title this year.

This is why attach ratios are the way they are. The games that rank good, do great.

It could be considered bad for the reason that the system is at a stall. You basically have die hard fans at this point who would buy a game just because it's on their system. If the attach rate continues to climb, your looking at the "hardcore" demographic purchasers and as many have already stated, the numbers aren't in the hardcore. With high attach rates, you can basically estimate how many of ___ software will sell based on the average sales of the other titles. If all the games only ship 400K max, then you'll see development teams budgeting time based on that. You might also deduce that most of the software titles are short lived and people tend to buy more titles to keep their interest in the console. A super high attach rate can be perceived as a bad thing in these situations. It's not necessarily bad for Microsoft as far as licensing fees, but it definitely exposes the demographic.

Attach rate is in no way bad, none of those arguments make any sense to me.

Whether or not hardware sales stall is unconnected to attach rate, so obviously you'd rather have a high attach rate if hardware sales are slow than a low attach rate if hardware sales are slow, that's a no-brainer. If the point is that the combination of high attach rate and high hardware sales is better than a high attach rate and low hardware sales, that's also a no-brainer.

And I could see how a high attach rate could improve hardware sales (in theory, plentiful / good games selling consoles), but I can't imagine any scenario where high attach rates hurt hardware sales.

If I stretched to find negatives, they would be:

-360 owners using their consoles a lot playing all the games they buy --> more RRsOD.

-360 owners buying a lot of games that end up being lousy, making them pissed off and unlikely to buy future games (probably not happening, most of the games on mrstickball's list had decent reviews).

-360 owners playing so many games that they're not getting enough sleep / food / excercise (especially with no calorie-burning waggle controllers) --> health problems and possible death!

What's impressive about attach rates now is it's in the Gamefly era. I know I'll be renting most of the games I want to play over the next five months (army of two, area 51, virtua fighter 5, racing games, sports games, etc.), and I'll *still* probably end up buying seven games (halo 3, gta 4, cod 4, bioshock, mass effect, assassin's creed, orange box) just in that period. No wonder many 360 owners are relieved games like splinter cell and too human have been delayed until 2008.

Also, do the attach rates include XBLA games?

 The Gamecube... it's attach rate was unheard of...  I believe it was either 10 or 12

PS2 software shipment is 1,24 billion. It has a attach rate of + 9.5

...but that's shipped, not sold.  I guess the more important number would be how many of those 1.24b games actually made their way into households.