I find that hard to believe. While a handfull of 360 arcade titles have gotten good scores, a far larger majority have gotten justifiably ripped. Even if you are right and it doesn't make a difference, I'd want to see the scores seperated. I expect FAR more from a $40-$60 title than I do a $10 title. This is for all systems BTW. I think including those types of games skews the numbers you are trying to show.

I may filter through the list when I get home tonight. Give me something to do while I'm watching the opening of the football season.

I don't care what the percentages are. They don't matter. You are just using them to continue you PS3 fanboy crusade.

Fact is, the Wii and 360 have more good on them than the PS3.

Hell, there is an XBOX Live Arcade game that is better than everything available on the PS3.

What does that say?

Look at the titles that are on both the 360 and the PS3.

All of them are better on the 360. Just look at the review scores.

I personally think it was a pretty accurate picture. It showed that the 360 has a wealth of good games right now, the PS3 has some solid titles (but not nearly enough), and the Wii has a few big titles with a whole lot of nothing after that. It pretty much matches the perception of all three consoles at this point. I was honestly surprised that it was so accurate related to perception.

PS3 has some similar stinkers as well. Games like:

Super Rub-a-Dub
flOw
Lemmings
Gripshift
Go! Puzzle
Blast Factor

All got below average reviews and were the $10 titles you speak of. It all evens out when you go through the list, basically leaving a similar situation where the 360 and PS3 have roughly the same curve with the Wii having a much lower curve.

I'm not using it to show the 360 is better or worse than the PS3. (in terms of software, that isn't even a debate now) I'm saying that it's skewing the numbers. But I guess as usual, you didn't bother to read my posts. In bold:

A majority of the "dog" scores are going to arcade games for all systems.

Even if you are right and it doesn't make a difference, I'd want to see the scores seperated. I expect FAR more from a $40-$60 title than I do a $10 title. This is for all systems BTW. (read the full thing, especially the last sentence)

When you wipe out the arcade games, I think we are going to find the scores for all systems start to slide upward. I believe there will be a very small percentage of games under 7. That shows how screwed up review scores can be and why it's critical not to just look at the score, but read the text of the review before making a decision.

i give stuntman ignition a 103 score

it is fun and it is real. u drive a car on a movie set and u cant die. buy this game for $60 or if u can find it for $80 then pay $80. it is that good. they do not make it for sega genesis.

The Wii became the fastest selling console ever to hit a million consoles sold in the UK by reaching the mark in 38 weeks. PS2 was 2nd at 50 weeks to do the same and it took the 360 60 weeks to do so. Also, the Wii has hit over 3 million sold in Japan only 7 months after its launch:

http://www.gamespot.com/news/6177889...stnews;title;2

I had the numbers still available. So I took out the arcade titles in the PS3 and 360 list (Metacritic had no VC titles for the Wii reviewed, so their numbers remain unchanged). As I stated earlier, It's pretty much the same with a couple of very small changes. I've put the change in percentage from the previous list to show you how the removal of arcade titles affect the overall list..........


-Both consoles showed similar improvement in the 70-100 range of good titles. The PS3 had a slight reduction in a couple of the below average levels. While the 360 percentages improved in the 60-69 range, it was offset by the fact that all of the 360 games ranked 40-49 were non-arcade games, therefore the percentage of the total games in that range went up.

-Looking at the percentages (revised), the PS3 has 67% of it's games rated 70 or higher. The Xbox 360 has 59% of its games rated 70 or higher. The Wii has 33% of its games rated 70 or higher.

-Looking at the 'stinker' category (less than 50). The 360 has 11% of its games that were under 50, while the PS3 came in at 6%. The Wii has 17% of its games that came in with a score of 49 or less.

Another issue with review scores that may hurt the Wii is target audience. For example, Cars for the 360 gets a 65 on Metacritic's scale. I'll tell you now that my kids love that game to death. It is way too simple a racing game for your typical 20-40 male reviewer, but is perfect for younger kids. I wouldn't be surprised to see Wii games ripped by reviewers that are adored by the actual audience those games are targeted at.

Licensing is a big selling point, especially with kids who don't read reviews but surely know the characters in a given game. The only kid titles that really seem to buck that trend you point out are the Lego games and the Backyard Sports games. Reviewers seem to respect those franchises for what they are and the Lego: Star Wars games are even popular with adults.

Mass Effect's release date will be November 20th:

http://news.teamxbox.com/xbox/14381/...ate-Announced/

Today, Microsoft Game Studios and BioWare Corp. announced that the highly anticipated action role-playing game (RPG) “Mass Effect” will ship to retailers throughout North America on November 20, 2007. The recipient of more than 50 awards, including the 2007 Game Critics Awards for “Best Console Game” and “Best RPG” at the Electronic Entertainment Expo last month in Los Angeles, “Mass Effect” is poised to become the must-play RPG of 2007.

After Oblivion, the 360 is in need of a good RPG since it looks like Blue Dragon isn't quite as impressive as hoped.

This one plays similar to Oblivion, correct (i.e. it's not a turn-based RPG)?

Once again, no, Mass Effect is a turn based RPG like KOTOR that you can allow to run without turns if you choose.

Good deal. As much as I enjoy Oblivion, I'm generally a bigger fan of the turn-based RPG. Would love to see more good ones come down the line.

Anybody have a chance yet to play Super Puzzle Fighter HD Remix yet? I saw it's out today on XBLA and PSN. I lost a lot of my youth to that game. I've heard they did an excellent job cleaning up the graphics to upgrade it to HD.

I've answered that same question/comment from you re: Mass Effect at least twice before ;)

I know. I felt the sharp sting of discipline when you said 'Once again, no,......'. It hurt, but I took it like a champ. :)

MLB Power Pros is coming out on October 1 (PS2, Wii), right in time for the baseball playoffs. I can't wait, from all I've read about the Japanese version this game sounds pretty awesome.

I'm trying to get a reviewable from Capcom. Probably be easier to get for XBLA than PSN, but que sera, sera.

Heard good things over the years, but never have played it.

Lair is getting shredded in reviews. No, MizzouBBFan, these aren't early preview copies anymore ;) IGN gave it a 4.9. I don't think I've ever seen IGN give such a poor score. Here is the review:

http://ps3.ign.com/articles/817/817117p1.html

Edited to add: PSM magazine, an official playstation magazine, gives the game a 5 out of 10.

Ouch. That's too bad. I was hoping that game would be great.

Dragon fights are super cool. How can you screw that up?

Unbelievable. That's a shredding. Things just don't look good for Sony right now. Two highly anticipated titles are scoring low in reviews. IGN ripped both Heavenly Sword and Lair in a single day. They did rate Warhawk highly, but I'm fairly certain this isn't what Sony had in mind. I don't hold much hope for Lair anymore. I'll still grab Heavenly Sword, but I'm not sure what other games I will purchase for the PS3 anytime soon.

I would consider a sports game for the rosters. . . but I love the 360 controller right now. It feels a lot better to me than the PS3 one. Unless one of the sports games is rated considerably higher, I'll buy the 360 version.

TroyF won't say "I told you so", so I'll say it for him - looks like his analysis of the Amazon pricing on Lair was on the money.

Uh, you might want to read the last page, Mr. William Gates.

Yeah, it turned out I was wrong on the pricing thing. (because it was a mistake to begin with. My assertion that they wouldn't cut the price by over half without some kind of inside knowledge stands IMHO)

The sad thing? My concerns for the game after the delay appear to be validated. Amazon SHOULD have kept up with their pricing. If the early returns are any indication, they have no chance in hell of selling out of their stock now.

Uh-huh. I'm fully aware of their claim of it being a mistake.

Maybe it really was a mistake, maybe they're just being polite so as not to piss off the game publisher. The game, by pretty much all the reviews coming out now, is a major, major let-down. Coincidence? Or did Amazon know something...

Dola - I'm not entirely sure what the William H. Gates crack was all about, but if you are implying I'm a shill for Microsoft, you might want to look in the mirror Mr. Howard Stringer.

Yes, it's not fairing well at all. I went over to a PS3 forum as that's a good place to get further info about a game when the reviews are mixed or downright poor. Even the PS3 fans who have the game were giving it a 7. Given that it's a pretty biased forum overall, you can knock that down to a 5 or 6 easily.

Heavenly Sword (83) and Warhawk (84) are getting good reviews and Warhawk is selling very well according to early sales reports. I guess PS3 fans will just have to be happy that Sony at least did well on those. But it is really disappointing to see Lair not turn out well, even after a few extra weeks under the knife.

I wouldn't exactly say Heavenly Sword is getting great reviews. Even if it holds to it's 83 average, we have two problems:

1) The ratings bias I talked about above. Play Magazine is one of the reviews so far and gave it a 100. And even a quote that's used in one of the reviews is worrysome.

So, while it doesn't eclipse the greatness of the original title that inspired it, Heavenly Sword is still a fun, engaging, and most importantly, exclusive PS3 title that Sony fanboys can brag to 360 fanboys about.


This guy gave the game an 88. But it's not as good as the original title that inspired it and "most importantly" it's an exclusive? WTF!?!

2) This wasn't supposed to be an "83" This was supposed to be a 90+. This was supposed to be a game of the year candidate. If this were a surprise hit that popped out at an 83, that's not a bad thing. But this had more hype than that.

I'll buy the game day one, just as planned, and judge for myself. But between Lair screwing the pooch and this not being the class of game I expected, I'm incredibly dissapointed. Were the PS3 my only system, I'd be REALLY pissed off about now.

No one in this thread has said Heavenly Sword is getting great reviews, but I'm nit-picking at that point. A score in the mid-80's certainly warrants a purchase as a good game that's well-worth the money, especially if you're into that style of game. Also, Heavenly Sword isn't even released yet. When Lair got the early reviews averaging about 6.5-7.0, I said to wait until it was released and then judge it. Obviously was a good point as it wasn't a 6.5-7.0 game........it was more like a 5.

We get it on the reviews. You don't buy into the system of number/letter ratings. I don't either. With that said, the composite score created by putting together various reviews does at least give a general idea of the overall quality of the game. You certainly didn't see me posting any scores from PS3-centered publications for the reason you cite above. Their opinion can be very misleading, but when using composite scores, their opinion is leveled out by other neutral publications. If you have a better method to get a solid neutral reads on the game other than personal opinion, I'm all ears.

I agree that the three recent releases were hyped to an ridiculous extent. I think we can agree that Lair is a disaster at this point. I think Warhawk has done very well. I honestly didn't think that a multiplayer-only game would do well in sales, but it has done very well so far. We'll see what the final product does when Heavenly Sword comes out. With that said, none of these games were expected to be major system sellers and that's been discussed in these threads. They are good games that expand a library that is overall lacking in number of titles. Did Sony hype them as more than that? Possibly, but I think most people saw them as good games, not system sellers. Sony PR isn't doing very well right now as it is, so nothing should surprise in that category.

Everyone knows the true killer titles for the PS3 will not be released until 2008. That's not a secret at all. It's roughly the same time during the life cycle that the 360 had several big titles, which was this year. The PS3 has to make headway next year when those system sellers come out.

Yeah, the American version of IGN only gave Heavenly Sword a 7 which makes it one of the worst reviewed PS3 games to date on their site. There are plenty of Heavenly Sword reviews that are not good although the average is skewed by some extremely high scores from a few reviewers.

That's simplpy not true The average is not skewed. Mean score is the average of all scores, which is an 83. The median score, which is the middle score of all of them in the list, can be used to determine bias. The median score is 83.5. If there was a skewing of the composite score upward, the median score would be lower than the mean score (i.e. most of the scores would be below the mean, but an extremely high number would be offsetting those lower scores). Conversely, if the score were being skewed downward by one extremely low score, the median score would be higher.

In this case, there's no bias in the data. It's actually pretty close to a bell curve with the composite score falling right at the peak of that curve.

Sony wasn't the only one hyping Heavenly Sword. It received countless awards from E3 and other shows. It may not have been expected to be a system seller, but it was expected to be a bigtime hit.

By the looks of it, it's a decent game with great cut scenes. It's also short from what the reviews are saying.

This isn't good news for Sony, I don't care how much you try to spin it. It may not cost them sales and it may not have been a system seller anyway, but they need some games to create a positive buzz to build up some momentum.

The 360 is going to have a wave of top flight games coming out for it this fall I said 5 A+++ games in another thread and got called out as being a 360 homer. With GTA delayed, that's one game off the table. But Bioshock (which had the least amount of buzz of any of the titles) already at that level and Mass Effect and Halo 3 dropping, I think it's going to get pretty close to that level.

The PS3 didn't need another "solid" game. It needed a hit. And it's looking like both Lair and Heavenly Sword won't be it. Warhawk is a nice effort. If Heavenly Sword and Lair lived up to expectations, Warhawk could be the hidden gem sleeper hit Sony would need to surround itself with the biggies. Instead, it looks like the best game of the three. I don't know how you can spin this as anything other than bad for Sony. I'm sure you'll find the way. :)

BTW, the Wikipedia entry on Heavenly Sword:

Following E3 2006, the game the was awarded "Best Fighting Game" by the Game Critics Award. The game also gained critical reception from a number of gaming websites, including "Best Artistic Design" and "Award for Technological Excellence" in IGN's PS3 Best of E3 2006 Awards, "Top Playable Game" by next-gen.biz, "Best PS3 Game" by Meristation, and "Best of Show" by GameZone and GamePro. Initial reviews have been mixed.



Does that sound like a decent, solid game or a terrifc game you'd want on opening day? YMMV I guess.

Bill Harris' blog has a link to a funny review of the Heavenly Sword demo and RE5 trailer.

Heavenly Sword and Warhawk could have both got a 90 instead of an 84 and it wouldn't produce a lick more of positive buzz for the PS3 except for a bit more excitement amongst PS3 owners, but even then, those aren't the people that Sony needs to sell on the system. It's a great system, but as long as it's more than $399, there's going to be people lined up to attack the system. It's a simple fact that price point is THE major issue. Most major analysts agree with that assessment. It's really not rocket science.

The Escapist is a must read. Always good articles.

Has anyone picked up the new Super Metroid for the Wii. Most of what I heard about it is that it's very good gameplay, but it's not a major advancement from the Gamecube version. Certainly, if you enjoyed the previous version, that's likely not a bad thing.

I haven't played it, but my son has been since we got it on Tuesday. It looks very much like the GC versions, maybe better.

More Metroid, you can't go wrong with that.

While I've railed about the price on many occasions, you've tried to continually point out that after a wireless adapter and accessories, the price point of the PS3 and the 360 aren't far off.

To be blunt, I think we are beyond the pricing issue.

What you've read from me over the past few months is quality of software. It's one of the things I've argued from the start: Games sell consoles. Not Blu-Ray DVD players. Games. Even read what I wrote above when comparing the three system. I didn't mention price point once.

There are multiple FOFCers who have said that if the games came out for the system, they'd buy it. So I disagree with you. If you have two highly touted games that live up to expectations combined with a sleeper hit, I think you'd start to create a positive buzz about the PS3. It may still be priced high, but it'll be priced high with a solid lineup of titles to choose from.

It's all opinion on this, but I've been pretty consistent with my comments on this over the past three+ months. I think when the games come, the people will follow.

Price is an issue when the exclusive games are getting 80-85 ratings. When those games are getting 90-95 ratings, price becomes much less an issue. :D

I agree that it is a games issue. That's what these things are for.

I learned a lesson with the 360. I got one a launch when there weren't any games I really wanted to play. Mine sat for months until Oblivion came out.

So, I decided to wait on games before I bought a PS3. It just so happens that I have become fully consumed by WoW since January. I don't know if I will ever get back to console gaming.

Exactly. If there were multiple exclusive games for the PS3 out there with terrific ratings like Bioshock is getting for the 360, I'd take the plunge at this price in a heartbeat. I'm sure I'm not alone in that viewpoint. With the 360 having Bioshock, Mass Effect (which looks like it is going to be a huge hit) and Halo 3 (which is certain to be a huge hit with well over a million preorders), I think this is going to be a huge holiday season for the 360 that is going to bury the PS3's chances of ever catching up to the 360 in sales.

It's going to be very interesting. Obviously, this is the 360's time to 'make hay' before the PS3 reaches a good price point and gets the system selling games in place. They really need to stretch out the lead while the PS3 still has slower sales. I'm not sure it's all that shocking that the 360 has more games with big ratings (6 for the 360 vs. 1 for the PS3) as the 360 is a year ahead in the console life cycle. The PS3 developers are still feeling things out while the 360 developers are hitting their stride. The PS3 will likely have a similar string of titles with FF, MGS, MGSO, and GT all slated for release next year.

That can be said for just about any console launch, not just the 360 and PS3. The games are sparse and lackluster.

As far as the PS3, there's little reason to purchase right now unless you want the 60 GB with the EE. Otherwise, best to wait for a better price point early next year IMO.

Similarly with the 360, I'd be apprehensive to buy a system simply because the 'old' systems are still being sold. They've said that the new systems should be available once the old ones are out of stock around the end of the year.

The biggest difference though IMO is that those titles for the PS3 will be competing against the next group of AAA titles for the 360 while the current (and near release) 360 AAA titles don't really have that kind of competition.

Agree with that to some extent, though it's going to be hard for any 360 title next year to reach the same level. All of those games are going to move Halo-like numbers worldwide. The movement of consoles is the real importance of these games. It will be interesting to see what kind of increase in sales we see over the next month and a half with the 360 because of Halo and Bioshock.