I agree on the games as I pointed out, but that's why userbase is important.  PS2 wasn't about a small number of titles selling massive amounts, it was about a very broad library of games selling in decent numbers to a very large, diverse install base.

The 360 (and Xbox before it) is about a relatively small but focused install base that will spend a lot of money on a relatively narrorw demographic of games and has a number of flagship titles.

The PS3 simply doesn't have the install base (nor I'd argue the library yet) of the PS2 and it lacks the focus of the 360 - hence the lower sales for apparently big titles.

It's really pretty obvious, and as you say perhaps the key element is understanding the games library from past vs now.

Personally I think Sony overfocused on MS/Xbox with initial titles and let Nintendo come in with its popular titles and an interesting new concept and steal the mass market from under them.

When my kids had a PS2 they wanted every new Sly Cooper, R&C, Crash game, Jak game, etc.  Friends had PS2's just for the football games and GTA, others only RPGs, etc.

PS3 is lagging way behind that and while I kind of admire the risk I think in the first two years of its life there have been far too few familar titles, too many new IPs and too much focus on a fairly narrow number of genres.

Congratulations to forza. Shifting more copies than a payed demo of gran turismo 5. wow.

Seriously, I think the money saved on the cheaper 360 is reinvested by owners into games. If you can buy a 199 xbox 360 you can afford 3 or 4 new release games instead of paying the money upfront for blu-ray.

Hah. Like every decent to major exclusive on the ps3 has broken a million, particularly those published by Sony.  A million may be an arbitrary number, but it's a respectable amount of sales that I'mgoign to use as a guage for this post.

These ps3 exclusive titles have broken a million (and all but one are published by Sony):

Resistance 1/2
MotorStorm
LBP
Uncharted
MGS4
Gran Turismo 5: Prologue
Ratchet & Clank Future
Heavenly Sword

Six of those have broken two million, and by the end of this year, the same six will have probably broken 3 million.  Possibly seven, depending on Resistance 2's legs and holiday sales.

And soon these will break a million:

MotorStorm: Pacific Rift
Socom: Confrontation (once it's released in Europe)
Killzone 2 (within mere weeks)

Comparatively, Microsoft has games like Viva Pinata 2, Banjo & Kazooie, Lost Odyssey, and others that are struggling to get there. Sony has some too, like Lair, but that game sucked unlike these others.

The only truly amazing sellers Microsoft has are Halo and Gears, and it took a hell of a lot of marketing for them to get there. The only other video game marketing campaign in history that rivals Halo 3's is Final Fantasy VII's. Not too mention, the 360's strongest market is BY FAR North America, where shooters sell the best, while the ps3 is spread out across all three markets.

And Gran Turismo 5 will likely sell on par with Halo 3.

My point in all this is that Microsoft may have a few big sellers here and there, but their titles don't sell consistently well across the board, and these sales are related more to region and marketing than anything else.

If we had an npd-like service for europe , things would be much worse for the ps3 exclusives . Now we have outrageous claims for these games ' performance in europe . Also having full npd charts , like we did a few years ago , would help .As things are now the best npd month a ps3 exclusive has had is the 770k for MGS4 and the second best is the 380k for resistance 2

I don't know about CoD: WaW, but CoD4 was amazing! That's why it sold well

@kowenicki

as GT as a franchise is much bigger than all the others u mentioned....so maybe its not an exception

but just "normal"

My guess is because unlike Halo we don't see any of Sony's games plastered on candy and coke cans. They don't have deals with fast food including , Coke advertising,toys and such. It really is a marketing thing. Candy, coke, and fast food are probably the best way to reach casual people who wouldn't ordinarily be interested in your product. Blockbuster movies have been doing this for ages. I'm surprised Sony(who also owns movie studios) hasn't picked up on this yet. If we had Mountain Dew cans with orange glowy Helghast eyes i'm sure Killzone would sell like Halo.

I think comparing the sales is pointless, as they have both been bundled

I love how games like socom, heavenly sword, motorstorm 2 , R&C and more are considered.......million sellers . Anyway based on 1) NPD numbers , 2) Weekly famitsu/media crate charts , 3) Various weekly european charts ps3 exclusives are doing terribly .