From calculations made in the past I found out a shocking truth...

Market share for hardware ~= market share software, off by a couple of %.

Its not really something worth talking about.

I guess one reason PS3 fans bring it up is the fact that too many times the PS3 is labeled by haters as a bluray player for which people don't buy games.

And obviously because the PS3 has the smallest install base it is important to have a decent average tie ratio in order to have continued third party support.

^ Precisely my thesis, though obviously I'm too verbose so people have missed the main thrust of my OP. Or folks are using this thread for exactly the opposite of what I intended. Maybe a bit of both.

Tie ratio is next to useless for the purposes of making qualitative comparisons between systems, and you can certainly over-analyse things by trying to second guess buyer motivation (a la the argument about -2 for Wii because of Wii Sports and Wii Play, that argument seems a bit petty to me). Only when a system has a shockingly bad tie ratio can you say there is a problem. I'd suggest the system with a particularly poor tie ratio is the PSP at a pretty lowly 2.37.

And the point with the PS3 is that its detractors predicted (wished for?) a PSP-like (or worse) tie ratio when the PS3 was launched, and they have been proven wrong.

I think it is a sad commentary on people's attitude for them to wish a system to fail. That means you are hoping that those who invested their hard earned cash in the system will end up having wasted their money. Something that most people in the world can ill afford to do. Pretty poor form I say to wish for that.

Would I have liked PS3 to do the best this gen? Absolutely. Would I want that to happen on the basis of Ninty or MS failing? No.