The 360 having more exclusives, although a lower average ranking, makes a lot of sense from the development perspective. Lesser dev houses are going to favor the 360 as an easier dev platform, and in some cases their publisher will opt to not do a PS3 port (particularly if the game is fairly low budget, since ports pretty much cost the same, no matter what the cost of the original game was).

Given that info, I think this list, and the over-time data, should make a lot of sense to any reader at this point.

I'm not trying to fan the flames here by suggesting that the 360 gets more... uh... "economical" exclusives... even though it does, for one of the reasons the 360 is doing so well (ease of development).  Low-budget can be good, and often its very creative.  I realize that the "more is better" concept has some negative aspects, but it does benefit the 360 some -- and the 360 clearly has more overall exclusives that the PS3 at this point.  ...I'm a little surprised anyone ever doubted this, given that its been on the market near 50% longer.

This is a silly post, as I’m sure everyone involved knows, at least on some level. First off, the OP clings faithfully to wonderful, pure, unbiased data in order to discuss something which I think we all know is anything but unbiased on these forums; the incessant fanboy wars. Unfortunately for all of us, we can't afford to be this naive in the utilitarian world we live in, at least when it comes to more important things. Collections of data are rarely trustworthy when there is an emotional motivation behind them – the eye sees what it likes, the heart quickens in anticipation, and the hand takes a snapshot which rarely manages to include the whole picture, let alone get all the angles.

I don’t want to spend very much time here because I’m in the middle of making a gun-toting fiery deathmatch level in LBP (working title: “Sack-man: Arena of Fiery Death”) but I just wanted to show the same data for a moment, sliced a different way.

Instead of looking at 90+ and 80+ groups, lets try 95+ and 85+ groups. I’ve also put in the review averages so that people can see for themselves where else scores could be cut off (there are more advantageous places for both systems).


95+

360
None

PS3
LittleBigPlanet 95

85+

360
Halo 3 94
Gears of War 2 93
Forza Motorsport 2 90
Fable II (PC port?)
Project Gotham Racing 3 88
Dead or Alive 4 85
Dead Rising 85
Project Gotham Racing 4 85

PS3
Metal Gear Solid 4 94
Ratchet and Clank Future: Tools of Destruction 89
Uncharted: Drake's Fortune 88
Valkyria Chronicles 87
Resistance 2 87
Resistance: Fall of Man 86


So the 360 has one exclusive at 85%+ more than the PS3 does, if we slice the data in a different place. But the PS3 has the only 95+ exclusive. Interesting!

All of the sudden, it looks pretty even. And all a result of throwing out the main assumption made in the OP: that cutoffs should be made in the most obvious place, at 80 and 90.

Of course, you have to draw the line somewhere when you collect data like this, but here’s the thing: By not examining the way that your results shift when you move the lines, by not challenging your own basic assumptions, you make a weaker foundation for your argument, and you end up with something that is more wishful thinking than conclusive data.
I want to point out that my results are not a fluke: by shifting the cutoff points to any number of different places, the 360 or the PS3 can come out way ahead. I’m sure it was random chance that 80+ and 90+ happened to show the 360 in an unusually advantageous light, but when results can change this much depending on the method applied, the underlying finding has to be that the data is inconclusive, and not that some irrefutable fact has been unearthed.

The most useful thing that can be done in data sets like this is to take a step back, list the review scores themselves, and let people in on your reasoning process as you attempt to organize the data. That’s what I’ve tried to do here.


Alic

I think we're missing how to properly look at the data. If you look close enough, the PS3 has more exclusives:

First, we take Onyx's list:

90+ Metacritic

80+ Metacritic

70+ Metacritic

60+ Metacritic

50+ Metacritic

49 and Below Metacritic(Shovelware)

What's the first thing on the list you notice? Shooters. There's just too many of them. No one likes shooters, since they're all better on PC.

So let's re-do this:

90+ Metacritic

80+ Metacritic

70+ Metacritic

60+ Metacritic

50+ Metacritic

49 and Below Metacritic(Shovelware)

Next, we strip out RPGs since they're a dying breed that have been console-ized, and are pretty useless in shio's eyes:

90+ Metacritic

80+ Metacritic

70+ Metacritic

60+ Metacritic

50+ Metacritic

49 and Below Metacritic(Shovelware)

Now for the final act. D stands for 'dumb', so lets remove all the titles that start with the letter D:

90+ Metacritic

80+ Metacritic

70+ Metacritic

60+ Metacritic

50+ Metacritic

49 and Below Metacritic(Shovelware)

The total count for this totally un-biased look? X360 with a paltry 33 exclusives, and the Playstation 3 with a masterful 27 games, and a huge lead for games above 80 Metacritic.

See Onyx how wrong you were? This is the only way to look at exclusives. It certainly points in the PS3's favor, so it must be true!

Its funny, I never picked MrStickball for a PS3 fanbot but hes really taken the bungie of reality and lept into oblivion with it. What a way to stretch reality and announce his PS3 fanboyism at the same time!

Uhm for one thing the first Halo was longer then Halo 2 which was longer then Halo 3, and therefore the long storyline like the original had was replaced by the fact you had these harder difficulties and co-op online, Halo is the best example but like I said you have a DS FPS which you would think since space and what they can do is limited it would be short but it's a 15 hour storyline yet most FPS games now seem to think that singleplayer isn't important at all, I personally can't stand playing FPS on dual analog so to get me to play a console FPS it must have a good story, a long story, and the singleplayer needs replay value.  Most of which is now gone from a lot of games this generation to make way for multiplayer that will never live up to the options given on PC, so again like I've stated before sure 360 has exclusives but it's really nothing that would make me want to go and spend the money especially since I play them anyway over at a friends house, and everything that is 360/PC I'll buy on PC.

The problem with the way you're organizing the data is that each grouping isn't equal. If your point was to split the listing into groups of every 5th percentile instead of every 10th, that I can get on board with. Sliding the scale to fit different scenarios isn't a way to measure anything. Your top and bottom groups would only consist of of 5% each and the rest would account for 10%. I've kept it even in every category and have organized it in the exact same way everyone else does around here. 5th percentile works too. But not a sliding scale of different measurements. In your world, we can simply slide the scale to a hundred different combinations and they are all of equal stature. Why not just make it look like this?

96-100%
93-95%
84-94%
57-83%
54-57%
31-53%
1-30%

This has as much chance of working as anything else correct? I used 10% because people understand it. They understand 5%. I don't think anyone other than yourself sees the point in making cutoffs wherever we feel like it to get a hundred different results.

And that was a wank post.  Thank you for missing the point entirely.

The nature of subjective review scores and data manipulation have no bearing on people claiming that; ‘the 360 has no true exclusives’.

He’s providing the data of which is the most objective metric available to gauge quality to portray that those claims are complete BS and that indeed it can stand on it’s own.  The metacritic lists were included before anyone could say 'oh but they're all crap games'.

This is not a pissing contest of who has the best exclusives.  Everyone just needs to stop making these claims.

try taking out the exclusives from before the ps3 was released. it's an unfair comparison at the moment if you include them since the 360 was the only HD console in the market and therefore had no true competition.

Why is the head start always an excuse for the PS3 and never an advantage for the 360??

Microsoft wasn't a year early.  Sony was a year late.

It's been explained over and over that this wouldn't prove anything. First of all, 360 being the only HD console has no bearing on first party titles or third party titles that were obviously going to be exclusive regardless. Secondly, a year's worth of extra software is a benefit the 360 is allowed to have by releasing a year earlier. You want to know what Sony has for releasing a year later? A Blu-Ray player and reliable hardware since launch. They each have their benefits they gained from releasing when they did. The PS3 is allowed to have it's talking points, and the 360 is allowed to have an extra year's worth of software that does exist in this world. These games have not gone away.