not very many though.  It is hard to really compare what kind of impact XIII would have compared to those two titles with it coming out so late in the gen.  VII and X both came out about a year after launch and were among the first RPG's for those consoles.  

Also, did you notice that almost half of the sells of those games came from japan?  A territory that is significantly smaller than the other two combined?  Japan represents maybe 20% of the marketshare but almost half of the sales.  You see what I mean when I say it is significant in Japan.  

You don't hear about Fable II moving hardware that much and it sold over 3 million in the west, which isn't that much less than Final Fantasy X.  Selling a lot of copies of games and moving hardware are very different.  People just aren't as nuts about RPGs in the west anymore, especially JRPG's.  

     FF XIII will sell at least 4 million copies in the West.  As a PS3 exclusive it would have done better because at least half the people that bought a PS3, especially among early adapters,  did so to play jrpgs.  Part of the PS3's struggle this gen has been due to its lack of jrpgs to please its audience which is mainly made up of Western Otaku and anime fans and it's attempt to make it's line-up have Western type franchises that would appeal to its primary audience instead.

     Also, I don't think there has been a true indication of how jrpgs sell in the West this gen yet because most of the ones that have been released have been poor to average ones released on the 360 which is still primarily a console for shooter and Western type game fans.

Oh I see highest rated in that way and not in a face off kind of way. As for IGN, I guess it's down to personal preference but I find their comparisons whack and amatuerish for such a large respected gaming journal. Eurogamer do it way better.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/grand-theft-auto-iv-ps3-vs-xbox-360-special-article

      I don't really think so.  They gave MGS4 a lower score than it deserved and some 360 games higher scores than they deserved.  After all the greatest American video game magazine, Dave Halverson's Play Magazine descendant of the greatest American video game magazine of all time Die Hard Game Fan also gave MGS4 a 10 like IGN and Halo 3 a 9 and the original Mass Effect an 8.7.

Nope. GTA "only" sold 7.6 million on 360. How much of that would have transferred to the PS3 along with PS3 HW sales if DLC had been multiplat from the beginning? Certainly not 50%, maybe 1 million, but let's say 2 million. The 360 gap got to over 8.5 million at its peak, take off a very optimistic 2 million and you have 6.5 million peak 360 lead.

The FFXIII effect remains to be seen. Going by the Americas pre-order chart PS3 has a big FFXIII lead in the country where 360 is the queen (Wii is the king). So it seems FFXIII didn't really drag too many FF fans from PS2 to 360, at least not in America. But let's be super-optimistic and say another 2 million. As of today 360>PS3 by 5.9 million, whack off that 2 million for GTA and we have 3.9 million, whack off another 2 million for FFXIII and we still have 360 ahead by 1.9 million. Even with major optimism 360 would still be ahead of PS3 today. I seriously doubt GTA IV and FFXIII were responsible for a 4 million console shift towards the 360.

What was responsible for the shift towards 360 was a 1 year head start and a ridiculously pricey PS3.

And then of course there was Wii to throw a huge bucket of cold water over the PS3, and throw a spanner in the works of 360's quest for global domination. Of course both HD consoles are living quite well in Wii's shadow, thankfully.

You didn't factor in FF Versus XIII coming out as a PS3 exclusive '09, or the speeded up release dates of GT5 and God of War III to take advantage of growing Sony momentum from a holiday '08 exclusive FFXIII on PS3.  And other games would have come as well.

I was talking about H2Hs, Eurogamer/Digital Foundry do it way better than IGN, it's plain for all to see. They use state of the art tech.

As for MGS4, my views on it can be found on the following link- http://www.vgchartz.com/forum/thread.php?id=97356 If your a die hard MGS4 fan than don't click on it, it might make you cry.

GT5 and GoW III are irrelevant in this. They would be coming out at about the time they are regardless of PS3 install base, a bigger install base is always better. VsXIII may or may not have come earlier, there's no guarantee that FFXIII would have been much earlier if it was exclusive, maybe 6 months. My own limited polling suggests Vs XIII won't be a big draw for 360 owners to run out and buy a PS3. In fact knowledge of Vs XIII exclusivity would basically serve to keep the die hard FF fans in the Sony camp, and this would significantly reduce the attraction of FF fans towards 360, thus significantly reducing the ability for the 360 to drain PS3 market share to almost negligible levels.

If anything the hypothesised delays of the FF entry into this generation only served to delay purchases of PS3 that were inevitable. But the quantification of that and it's effect on PS3 vs 360 market position are impossible to determine. Needless to say my opinion is that such an effect would not have reversed the PS3/360 positions, but merely reduced the gap to some extent.

I agree to a certain extent though. If PS3 retained some key 3rd party exclusivity then PS3, despite it's opening price, would have been likely to reign in 360's lead before 360 went off market, rather than the situation we see today which is that PS3 is unlikely to reign in and overtake 360's lead before 360 leaves the market. 2010 becomes a watershed year in the race between 360 and PS3. By this time 2011 we will know for sure wherther PS3 has regained the necessary momentum to take over global 2nd place, or whether 360 momentum has been reinvigorated to keep PS3 at bay.

You might as well say if Sony retained its GTA exclusivity it would be in the lead right now...

Same thing, stuff happens....

if gta 4 itself was exclusive to ps3 then it wud've made difference not dlc