just a few points.............the games you listed iin the 1st sectin ive bought for ps3 and not 360, theres no point for me buying them on 360.

your second point has to be a joke. all my well most of my freinds are on ps3, so your argument doesnt hold.

the real reason 360 has higher attach rate is because its been out longer for one, i think it was cvg who did a like for like attach comparison taking consideration of 16 month head start of 360, and 360 was ahead in attach but it was only by roughly 0.8 more

The major reason the 360's attach rate is so awesome is the Achievements gimmick, and this is by design. Get people to overplay their games to death as fast as possible, then provide them with an illusion that there is nothing left for them to do. This gets them bored more quickly, so they run out and buy more games to get MOAR POINTZ.

It's a brilliant move, I'll give them that much. It gets to the heart of one of the biggest problems developers face: as long as people are replaying their older games, they're not buying new games. Replay isn't profitable, and Achievements are the replay-killer.

You don't own a 360, right?

It's that obvious huh? This has got to be the first time someone has used the argument that Achievements are a hindrance to replay value as opposed to a boon.

Yup that Gears 2 has no replay value, because once you get your 100,000 kills for that final achievement, you've got nothing left to do.

Pretty much ;)

It's not really a factor of why it has such a high attach ratio, but it is the major reason it is higher than the Wii and PS3s. True it would still be higher than both when looking back 1 year.... I believe last year at about this time it was between 7 and 8 games per system, whereas the Wii is currently (up to Sept 30th) at 6.65 games per system.

Although that 6.65 doesn't include Wii Sports, which if added put it up to arounf 7.5 games per system.... A figure I think is more impressive considering the Wii is also selling much more hardware.

Where did you get those numbers?  Last I saw, the most recently released data (around october or even more recent) had PS3 at ~5.3 and the Wii at ~5.6  The 360, taking considerable time frames (so the 360's first 23 months compared to the other console's first 23 months) was at ~6.1.  If you take the full thing into consideration, the 360 is at ~8.1, so you are saying that the whole first year every 360 owner bought an additional 2 games?  The first year of the 360 had very few games, and was mostly sports titles.  I think if they did a study of the actual first year's attach ratio, it would be rather low, but once all 3 consoles were on the market, the 360 spruced up its games offerings, and thats why the majority of hardcore gamers look at the 360 and see it has more and better games.  The truly hardcore, like myself, will go PS360, and the majority of those PS360 owners tend to favor the 360 for multiplats and so far better exclusives.

I really don't think the first year of the 360 helped it's attachment ratio much at all.  I mean, it sold far less than the next 2 years, and there were far less games to buy.  I know a majority of my friends wouldn't even go near a 360 until the PS3 came out and they had something to compare it to.  Then they saw the lack of games on the PS3 and the higher price, and chose the 360.

Everyone's groups of friends will be different, but the majority of people will still be able to say, "More of my friends have 360s" because it is simple math and numbers (or more likely "More of my friends have Wiis" but we aren't debating that).  The majority of this site's members are likely US citizens, and given that the 360 has more than double the installed base than the PS3 in the US, more people on this site should also be able to say this.  If you are not a US citizen, you are more likely to say, "More of my friends have PS3's", but even in Europe this isn't the case much anymore.

The difference is not made simply by adding the extra year.... the people who bought the 360 in that extra year bought games during that year, but also games during the other years.... so the best way to see how the 3 consoles are stacking up is to take off the latest year for the X360, not the first year.

-----

The Attach ratio for the Wii I got from Nintendo's fiscal reports... Thus as of the end of September, the ratio for the Wii is 6.65 (not including Wii Sports) and from Sony's reports the PS3s ratio is 6.77.

I am not so good with Microsoft's reports, not sure they even have a nice running tally of what they shipped, so the attach ratio for the X360 is based on memory from what they have announced.... I believe it is currently over 9 games per system though, but last year was about 7.5ish.

I wait for the day a PS3-fan can admit, that the Xbox360 is doing fine. I mean the attach-ratio is great and so are 61 millionsellers after 3 years.

All the time you here "reasons" from fanboys why this has happened. No PS3fan would say, yeah, the Xbox360 is very good at selling software. Instead you here "but it was released earlier". Taling about hardware sales "but the price..." Talking about Xbox Live "but you have to pay $3 per month" Talking about Achievements "Nobody cares about" I am getting tired of it. The Xbox360 has its strengths. It is that simple.

Do you think the PS3 will have the same attach-rate in one year from now? Maybe. What about million-sellers? I doubt that the PS3 will get 40 new millionsellers next year to be there where the Xbox360 is now.

Very interesting.  No doubt the 360's ratio is much higher than 8.1 then!  I agree, it is very hard to calculate how the 1 year advantage affected the attach ratio... Either way you do it, it leaves out important information (like if you cut off the latest year, you miss a lot of moved hardware, new game releases, price drops; if you use the first year, there are many factors as well, such as supply constraints, less games available, less sales, unpredictable behavior had it been released at the same time as the others - such as improved hardware with no RRoD, more exclusives, lower price, more add-ins) What is amazing, though, is that with all the aweful press from RRoD, the 360 still had and continues to improve on great sales of both hardware and software.