I'd say sales. You'd be foolish to say that Assassin's Creed isnt AAA, even though it wasnt received particularly well by reviewers.

 Sequel sales are also a pretty good indication, i.e even though Resistance: FoM sold alot at launch, the sales of R2 proved that they were more to do with a dirth of software on the PS3, rather than the game actually being recieved wel by consumers.

My signature doesn't assert any opinions as too whether 90%+ games effect the console war.

It is the statistics that apparently assert the Xbox 360 as being the superior console.

Despite the fact that a game can be awesome without being rated over 90% ?

So the 360 has the most 90% games, but is not necessarily the most awesome console...

Maybe we should call every game that has sold over 1 mill copies triple A, like going platinum in the music industry.
There's just no hard definition of triple A.
It seems everybody has their own standard on AAA, from producers to customers.

Triple A budget,  Triple A franchise?  Introduce an AA (new IP) title with hopes that it will make profit and grow to a triple A franchise? EA's Madden football is always AAA.  Big budget, long worked on titles dosent mean triple A (I'm still waiting for DUKE NUKE'em)   From the looks of it when a new titles comes out its the Advertising or the DRAW in, that will make people think its a triple A but its moslty the company with thier AA title praying for HUGE profits/sells so they can make triple AAA follow ups and establish a money maker franchise.  Exp: Drakes' pt1 (above average-new IP) = AA.  Drakes' pt 2 (way better more things to do and multi player)  = AAA "established franchise" money maker.

Uncharted 2 will not achieve AAA sales, I expect it to do around resistance 2 numbers. The first one only sold well through heavily bundling, like viva pinata.

It broke 2 million before the US bundles started last holiday season.

Not to mention, the game is still full priced in the US.   It did not only sell well through heavy bundling.

2 million shipped, not sold , if it were sold,surely it would have appeared in the NPD's?

I meant worldwide.

The only instance of "heavy" bundling took place over last holiday season in NA. Even then, it was only the more expensive SKU that included the game. The game managed to sell 2 million up until that point worldwide.

And I take it you don't trust our numbers?

Well from the standpoint of quality I would classify Resistance 2, Assassin's Creed and Resident Evil 5 (co-op ONLY) as AAA games