I remember reading a servey that said the average gold subscriber on Xbox Live makes 50k/yr USD and is single... 50k and single means lots of free money

360 attach rate should go down slightly in the future.
The arcade models that have been seeling well lately, I expect those buyers to be a bit more stingy on the game buying.

All of the above is false, I'm sorry to say.

If you work out the numbers based on the sales profile of each console, you find that the average 360 gets a game bought for it every two-and-a-bit months. And the number is the same for the PS3, and for the Wii.

Which all goes to show that - on average - game-buying habits are more constrained by the cash available than by the quality or availability of games for whatever platform it is.

The difference between the consoles is almost solely down to MS's head start - that and a tiny bit of random fluctuation.

Which isn't even important enough to write a post about except so many people read too much into the raw.

... data.

phi - If that's the case, then you expect the Wii to jump from a 5.5 attach ratio to 8.1 by this time next year?

The X360 was well above the Wii, even aligning launches. The Wii started with an attach ratio around 2.0. The X360 started at 5.0. It's led it every step of the way. Feel free to look at any tier ratio information - the X360 has clearly done better at every step of the way.

As time goes on, the tier ratios for all 3 systems will only get larger. Most of the 6th gen systems had ratios around ~10 games/system...And that wasn't built in a day.

I expect X360 ratios to get to 10.0 or even 11-12 by the time it dies, and the Wii has every indication to hit 8-9 before the generation is over.

Yeah, about that. It doesn't work out linear especially on the Wii because of the strong upward slope of the sales curve, and PS3 is noticeably affected by the late EU release. Hence why it is tricky to work out properly, but you get the general idea.

I worked the figures in detail a few months back for some other forum (before I joined here) but I can't find 'em again. I'll gladly rework the maths if you can point me to some reliable numbers to work on (I think I used NPD last time, because if you get into worldwide there's a huge number of games especially in Japan that don't really get tracked over here).

Incidentally, if X360 started at 5 that really doesn't say much for its subsequent rate of sales compared with the other consoles.

Oh, and it is probably worth mentioning that the numbers are very sensitive to the holiday period. They go way up (lots of presents being bought) at end of year and slide down until about March before getting back on to some sort of recognisable line!

hmm, didn't know about the Gamecube thing, but all these new answers leads to, "how did MS get that demographic so well?"

The trailing console usually ends up with the highest attachment rate. Thing is, a large footprint actually will drag your console down in terms of attachment rate, because as your footprint increases, the ratio of casual to hardcore players must also increase. There's a limit to how many hardcore players there are, and owning specific console doesn't magically change you from a casual player into a hardcore one.

the 360 caters to a very niche, unaturally active gamer. As, or rather if, 360 becomes more widely adopted, its sales ratios WILL go down because it will be pulling in more casual players who will only want 1 or 2 games.

This does not take into consideration the XBL peer pressure effect which many people have already mentioned. Microsoft basically has their players constantly wearing Tshirts that advertise their product, They don't even have to say antyhing, they just have to play, and be visible to other friends, and they're a built in PERSONALLY targeted advertisement."All your friends are playing it, you want to play with them, right? Then buy this game too, and then all YOUR friends will be able to see when you're playing it too"

I never thought about  it, but it pisses me off when someone is playing a game I don't have

It has a higher attach rate simply because it was released a full year prior to the Wii or PS3. With superior graphics to the previous gen. People rushed out and bought the 360.

What type of people bought the 360 and couldn't wait for the PS3/Wii? The hardcore gamers. A crowd that used to reside primarily as a PS2 crowd. This early adoption group alone, props up quite a bit of the attach rates.

Then when you factor that many big time games that "Hardcore" gamers love to play went multi-platform (GTAIV, DMC, etc) these Hardcore gamers never had a need to switch to a different console to obtain these games.



The 360 grabbed a crucial market by releasing their system first and providing a solid service from day one. The PS3 lost a lot of that market by releasing their system a year later, with a higher price and what appeared to be an incomplete service and losing many high profile titles.

One additional driving force, The cult like phenomenon for games such as Gears of War, Halo.


And lastly, Microsoft knows Americans well. They know what they want and what they like. Sony not so much. Microsoft knows that if they plop out a few fun, engaging shooters with solid graphics and a cheap console half the work is done.