Ugh! not another tired, tie ratio tirade.

As lurker I found it interesting that PS3 enthusiasts frequently referred to PS3's improving tie ratio when coming to the defence of their favoured machine. Whereas Wii and 360 enthusiasts almost never mentioned their tie ratios. It was obvious what the PS3 enthusiast was trying to achieve, but as a somewhat flawed line of reasoning I wondered why this stat took on more significance than it should.

Agreed at the end of the day it is raw numbers of software sales that determines success in a corporate sense (i.e. profits).

But what does tie ratio do? It tells developers and the console maker how many overall game sales to expect with each new piece of hardware purchased. But it doesn't tell anyone how many sales of a given game to expect. It also tells these people whether consoles are selling better than software or vice-a-versa. All businesses involved in gaming would want to see tie ratios going up over time, provided console sales stay at a reasonable level. A good tie ratio means healthy customer support for a system, and is probably correlated with long term buyer satisfaction.

But these things are all the same for each system, and they don't explain the particular interest PS3 supporters have.

The underlying reason I think more PS3 supporters are concerned about tie ratio than the supporters of Wii and 360 is that one of the major insults hurled as the PS3 early on was that the proverbial "everyone" was only buying it to play Blu-ray movies, therefore games would tank regardless of how many units the system would sell. The implication being that third party support would die out. This inability to sell games was never an accusation levelled at Wii or 360 AFAIK.

So what does a respectable WW tie ratio, and the best tie ratio (Incl PSP & DS) in the Others suite of countries tell everyone in relation to that very early criticism? Basically it puts the lie to its detractors' claims that people only get PS3 for the BR movies. And it shows PS3 is most definitely a gaming system worthy of development support.

PS3 supporters should now be secure enough in the viability of PS3 as a gaming system that tie ratio now goes back to its rightful place as an interesting stat, not something on which to try to base an argument about who is doing better.

PS3 detractors should be mature enough to acknowledge that PS3 has long passed an important milestone: achieving solid and ongoing gamer support. They may have wanted PS3 to fail in this regard, but it hasn't. From what I've seen on this site the supporters of Wii/360 generally do acknowledge that PS3 has achieved a decent level of gamer support. A fair number go further than begrudging acknowledgement and actually congratulate PS3s achievement. It's only the rabid haters who hold on to hope that PS3 will fail as a gaming machine.

A bit odd that I should write a thread about tie ratio which is essentially saying that we don't need to talk about tie ratio any more. This was a curiosity I wanted to make an observation on now that I've gone from lurker to member.

Do you think I have read the psychology of the tie ratio phenomenon right?

I think that it is pretty safe to assume that you are correct. Tie ratios are still an enigma to many, but the fact is that PS3 owners are proud that we have had victories on the tie ratio field.

PS3 is in last place and tie ratios will be higher(naturally) so PS3 fans use it as an argument because it makes PS3 look good.

But its lower than the Wiis... I wouldn't call it a victory or something to be concerned about.

And the Wii has an inflated tie ratio, every single system comes with Wii Sports (if it wasn't included many would be sold on the used side at this point) and since 90 % of all owners will buy at least a second controller the most economical way to purchase it is to buy Wii Play, again counting as a game sale.

A few buyers (maybe about 20 %) of Wii Fit owners bought it for the balance board as it is the only way to get it so they can use with the few games that have it as an optional contol.

I'd say that whatever the number the Wii has you have to subtract at least 2 full games from that tie ratio for a true comparison.

Pretty sure I read something on Kotaku/Joystiq this week about the PS3 passing the Wii's tie ratio.

Part of the reason the tie ration is important for the PS3 is because of the loss leading strategy of Sony. Sell the system at a loss to make the money back on software. Obviously the more loss you take on each system the more software you need to sell to each consumer before you start seeing profit. But since we don't know what that number is, discussion doesn't really get you that far.

@morpheusx:
IF people didn't get Wii Sports with the Wii, the vast majority would have just bought another game instead. IF they didn't like and play Wii Sports so much they may have bought more than one other game. IF extra controllers didn't come with Wii play perhaps less people would have bought them. IF Wii Sports wasn't bundled do you think it would have sold 0 units? IF you ignore those points and add up the sales of the three games you mentioned it still doesn't make 2 games per Wii system sold.

We can talk about IFs all day but how about we just stick to the facts.

Wow.. man I love XBOTS logic

I have to agree with you on this.